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ELLAS 



HER MONUMENTS AND SCENERT 



BY 



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THOMAS CHASE, M.A. 



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CAMBRIDGE 
SEVER AND FRANCIS 

I863 QJ 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, by 

THOMAS CHASE, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Eastern District of 
Pennsylvania. 



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University Press: 

Welch, Bigelow, and Company. 

Cambridge. 



TO THE MEMORY OF 

CORNELIUS CONWAY FELTON, LL. D., 

TO WHOM, 

AS GENIAL INSTRUCTOR AND EVER-FAITHFUL FRIEND, 

THE AUTHOR IS IN GREAT PART INDEBTED 

FOR HIS LOVE AND HIS KNOWLEDGE 

OF THE ARTS AND LETTERS 

OF GREECE. 



PREFACE 



IT has been a labour that was its own re- 
ward to collect these notes of personal 
observation during a tour in Greece, and 
combine them with the results of some sub- 
sequent study of the principles of Grecian 
Art. The work was begun, and in part car- 
ried through the press, in the hollow calm 
of the last Presidency; but when the bitter 
truth was manifest that our republic was 
doomed to drink the calamities of civil war, 
the author threw down his pen, for he had 
no heart to dwell on other themes than the 
one object of all our interests and all our 
cares. Yet, having from the first cherished 
the conviction that it is a time no less of 
hope than of agony, and believing that his 



VI PREFACE. 

country's cause is the cause of culture and 
civilization, as well as of humanity and free- 
dom, deeming it, moreover, the part even of 
patriotism for those who are devoted to let- 
ters or the arts to pursue their calling with 
no less vigour than before, after the lapse 
of a twelvemonth he resumed his task. And 
whither shall they who fondly hope that it 
may be granted them to make some slight 
contributions to that part of their nation's 
glory which is most real and most perma- 
nent, turn for instruction and for inspiration 
rather than to Hellas? She is a teacher of 
humanity for all ages, and her voice is not 
silenced by the clash of arms : 

"For Greece and her foundations are 
Built below the tide of war, 
Based on the crystalline sea 
Of thought and its eternity." 

West Haverford, Pa., November 27, 1862. 



CONTENTS. 



Page 

From Naples to Athens 1 

Argolis 20 

From Athens to Parnassus .... 48 

Ascent of Parnassus 67 

From Delphi to Athens 84 

Marathon 96 

The Ruins of Athens . . . *. .110 

2Egina 171 

Pentelicus 178 

The Modern Capital and Kingdom . . 183 
The Discoveries at Athens and Mycenae in 

1862 203 

Notes 215 

Index 217 



HELLAS. 



FROM NAPLES TO ATHENS. 

" Yet to the remnants of thy splendour past 
Shall pilgrims, pensive, but unwearied, throng; 
Long shall the voyager, with the Ionian blast, 
Hail the bright clime of battle and of song ! 
Long shall thine annals and immortal tongue 
Fill with thy fame the youth of many a shore; 
Boast of the aged ! lesson of the young ! 
Which sages venerate and bards adore, 

As Pallas and the Muse unveil their awful lore." 

I had seen the exiled sculptures of the 
Parthenon in London, the Yenus of Melos at 
the Louvre, — strayed among the solemn ruins 
and through the opulent galleries of Rome, — 
been admitted, as it were, to the very house- 
holds of the ancients, in the disentombed cities 
of Campania, and beheld on their walls the 
reflected glories of Grecian painting, beautiful 
1 



2 HELLAS. 

even in its decline, — gazed, too, at Psestum, 
in that silent plain by the side of the sea, on 
a well-nigh perfect image of the Doric temple, 
simple and elegant, matchless in harmony and 
repose. Yet all these sights so rich in bless- 
ings to a young American scholar — the crown 
of youthful studies, the realization of boyish 
dreams — but inflamed my longing to wander 
in that land which in arts, in letters, in all 
that exalts and dignifies man as an intellectual 
being, was the mistress and teacher of Rome 
herself, and still sways her sceptre over the 
whole civilized world. 

It was then with a thrill of glad expectation 
that, on the 4th of May, 1853, 1 found myself, 
without companion, on board of a French 
steamer at Naples, and on my way to the 
Peiraeus. Soon we were floating swiftly over 
the calm, blue, bright waters of the Mediter- 
ranean, along the picturesque coast of old 
Campania and Lucania, while rocks and hills 
and water all were flooded with the soft and 
living light of an Italian afternoon. Our com- 
pany presented that variety of nationality and 
character commonly met with on Mediter- 



FROM NAPLES TO ATHENS. 6 

ranean steamships. There was a tall, grace- 
ful, neat-limbed Arab from Algiers, with his 
red slippers, loose trousers, and closely fitting 
fez ; a slight, black-eyed Mexican lieutenant of 
the navy ; two Franciscan monks, missionaries 
from Rome to Constantinople, with shaven 
crowns, and wearing the coarse brown robe of 
their order, tied by a rope around the girdle, — 
mild, good-natured, unintelligent, dirty crea- 
tures ; a Russian gentleman, who was return- 
ing to Moscow, after spending several years in 
the most important countries of Europe, and 
perfecting himself in their languages, all of 
which he spoke with the ease and correctness 
often observable in the educated of his nation ; 
an Italian from Rheggio, who declared to me 
his enthusiasm for his country's friend, Lord 
" Bee-ron," and pronounced me happy that I 
was about to follow his footsteps in the " land 
of lost gods and godlike men ; " an intelligent 
young Greek from Syra, — doing honor to Mr. 
Hildner's school, of which he was an alumnus, 
— who did battle, with some Frenchmen, 
against a thin, melancholy, black-faced Arme- 
nian priest, who told them it was a sin to 



4 HELLAS. 

read any book whatever, without first assuring 
themselves that it had the express sanction of 
the Church ; a few ladies ; and the usual num- 
ber of swarthy Frenchmen, polyglot Germans, 
and respectable Englishmen with round faces 
and mutton-chop whiskers. 

The next morning the mountain isle of 
Stromboli, the fabled home of iEolus, was 
close before us, a conical rock, rising boldly 
from the sea ; and JEtna showed his summit 
far in the south. A few hours more brought 
us to the Straits of Messina, with the far- 
famed rock of Scylla raising its head modestly 
enough beneath the highlands of the Italian 
coast, to the height of about two hundred feet, 
while to the right, between our ship and the 
long, low, narrow point of sand on the Sicilian 
shore of the narrow pass, was the site of the 
whirlpool of Charybdis. Even at the present 
day, small vessels are sometimes endangered 
by its eddies : but it has long lost the terrors 
with which it is invested in ancient song, 
whether from the superiority of modern navi- 
gation, or from some of the geological changes 
frequent in this volcanic region ; and we no- 



FROM NAPLES TO ATHENS. 5 

ticed, as we sailed calmly over it, only a slight 
agitation in the water, contrasting with the un- 
ruffled surface of the broader sea. Hurl-Gate 
is at least as terrible as this fabled monster. 

In the harbour of the pretty town of Messina, 
finely situated at the foot of an amphitheatre 
of high, precipitous hills, clothed with the rich 
green of luxuriant groves, and sprinkled with 
white villas, we lay several hours just outside 
of the sickle which curves to form the inner 
harbour, and then coasted along the Sicilian 
shore, with iEtna in view near at hand, on 
our left, — the calm and grand sovereign of 
its attendant mountains, its quiet summit ex- 
hibiting no signs of the recent eruption. 

The very rough sea which the vessel en- 
countered that night was a disagreeable change 
for us ; but at an early hour the next morn- 
ing we anchored in the harbour of Valetta, the 
chief town of the island of Malta. Taking 
a little boat to the land, and safely running 
the gantlet of the beggars on the Nix man- 
glare stairs, I found a pleasant, homelike feel- 
ing in wandering about this town, and hearing, 
in the shops and streets, the familiar accents 



D HELLAS. 

of my mother tongue. The language of the 
natives, it is true, is a mixture of Arabic and 
Punic; and a barbarous Italian, also, is ex- 
tensively spoken ; but English is the language 
of the government, and generally understood 
by the tradesmen, of whatever descent. Clean 
streets and honest shopkeepers were another 
and most welcome novelty to one fresh from 
Italian towns. Valetta is built chiefly of a 
bright cream-colored limestone, a very beauti- 
ful building material ; in the forms and pro- 
portions of its edifices, also, the town makes 
no little pretensions to architectural beauty. 
In the cathedral of St. John I admired the 
costly mosaic pavement, the vaulted aisles, 
and some of the paintings and statues ; but 
the effect of the building is impaired by its 
heavily gilded ceilings, and excessive orna- 
mentation. In one of the chapels, a massive 
bronze railing takes the place of one of solid 
gold which was taken by Napoleon when he 
plundered the church .of its vast treasures in 
1798. Against a railing of solid silver, in 
another chapel, which escaped pillage by being 
painted over, hang three large keys, — those 



FROM NAPLES TO ATHENS. 7 

of the gates of Jerusalem, Acre, and Rhodes. 
Costly monuments of the Grand Masters of the 
Knights of Malta are seen on every hand in 
this church, and in the crypt below, dedicated 
to their patron saint ; while nearly the whole 
floor is covered with the sculptured effigies of 
members of the order, mostly concealed, ex- 
cept from the eyes of the curious traveller, by 
a matting of straw. In a hasty visit to the 
large public library, I noticed chiefly a small, 
but very interesting collection of fossil shells 
and fishes from the rocks of the neighbourhood. 
We could stay but a few hours at Malta, 
for our steamer was behind her time, and the 
boat for Constantinople was waiting to receive 
us. Transferred to the large wooden steamer 
Osiris, before noon we were again ploughing 
the Mediterranean, with our prow turned to the 
East. What a glare of the sun, poured from a 
cloudless sky, and reflected from the sparkling 
waters ; how we tossed on the cross, chopping 
waves of that midland ocean ! On the morn- 
ing of the third day we hailed '."the bright 
clime of battle and of song ; " for there, clear- 
ly defined in the early light, the hilly shores 



8 HELLAS. 

of Peloponnesus rose before us, and soon, pass- 
ing the Gulf of Conon, we were off Cape Mat- 
apan, its barren, treeless hills standing out in 
bold relief beneath that brilliant sky, and the 
rock wall of their bases deeply indented by the 
gnawing surges. A long, low point of rock 
extends from these hills, and forms the south- 
ern extremity of the cape. "We saw an old 
man walking on the shore, — a hermit, who 
had chosen for his retreat the southernmost 
point of Europe. It was not long before we 
were passing between the mainland and the 
barren hills of Cythera, — now Cerigo, — where, 
first of European Greece, the worship of Aphro- 
dite was introduced by Asiatic colonists, or 
where, in the graceful language of mythology, 
she sprang from the foam of the sea. The 
deep-blue iEgean gave us a hospitable recep- 
tion worthy of its ancient fame, in striking 
contrast to the stormy waters of the "West. 
Over its hushed waves, amid its storied isles, 
we glided on to Syra, where we arrived at 
midnight. A boat soon came alongside from 
the shore, in which, by the light of a lantern 
they bore, we noticed an old man and a youth, 



FROM NAPLES TO ATHENS. 9 

clad in the peculiar and picturesque costume 
of these petticoat-trousered islanders. They 
endeavored to beguile passengers for the Pei- 
raeus to take their boat to the other steamer at 
that time ; but as we knew it would not leave 
until after we had been admitted to pratique 
in the morning, they lost the opportunity of 
demanding an exorbitant price on account of 
the lateness of the hour. From this boat our 
ears were first saluted by the accents of the 
Modern Greek language ; but, in our inex- 
perience, we could distinguish little but the 
often-repeated word of assent, " Malista." 

The town of Syra — the most important 
and flourishing commercial port of Greece — 
is built on the slope of a hill, surrounding a 
fine bay, on the eastern side of the island. It 
holds an enviable rank among the towns of the 
kingdom for the excellence of its schools, one 
of which, that under the care of Mr. Hildner, 
a German missionary, is among the very few 
allowed to exist in Greece without compliance 
with the law requiring the catechism of the 
Greek Church to be taught in every place of 
instruction. 



10 HELLAS. 

From this island we departed late in the 
forenoon, for the Peiraeus, in the steamer Ly- 
courge, the Osiris proceeding on her way, at 
the same time, for Smyrna and Constantinople. 
The detention which had abridged our stay at 
Malta gave ns the unusual advantage of pass- 
ing among the romantic " isles which crown 
the iEgean deep " by daylight, instead of in 
the night. Thus, in our passage from Cape 
Matapan to the Peiraeus, we enjoyed a view 
of nearly every one of the Cyclades. The nu- 
merous small isles which form this group are 
rocky, hilly, and almost universally dry and 
barren in their appearance, but picturesque 
in form and outline, and grouped charm- 
ingly in the calm, blue waters of the sea, 
sparkling, in the flood of sunshine, like jewels 
on her breast. But their names, — the asso- 
ciations, — their immortal renown in history 
and song, — awakened all my enthusiasm as I 
floated by their shores. In grateful relief to 
the general barrenness of these islands, the 
long hill-sides of Zea (Ceos of old) are dotted 
with groves of Valonian oak, a noble tree, of 
dark green foliage. The picturesque outline 



FROM NAPLES TO ATHENS. 11 

of the southern shore of Euboea soon greeted 
our eyes, and then the promontory of Sunium, 
the southeastern point of Attica, with the beau- 
tiful ruin of the temple of Athena gleaming 
from afar, diminished in the distance to a lit- 
tle speck of white. Those fair columns, hewn 
from the marble of a neighbouring hill, crown 
a cliff impending the sea in front of the higher 
eminence of the peninsula. An opera-glass as- 
sisted me in examining them. Even Turner's 
well-known drawing does scanty justice to their 
loveliness and the surpassing grandeur of their 
situation. As one passes by the side of the 
treeless hills, of lime-rock mingled with mica 
slate and clay slate, which form this promon- 
tory, called by the Greeks of the present clay 
Kavo Kolonai, — the Cape of the Columns, — 
the panorama is beautiful in the extreme. 
The picturesque outline of the hills of the 
Morea and the Isthmus in the distance, the 
lovely isles of iEgina and Salamis, the Acropo- 
lis, and the hills of Attica, under the soft light 
of the setting sun, whose last beams were 
painting the western skies with rose and pur- 
ple and gold, upon a background of delicious 



12 HELLAS. 

apple-green, presented a picture of the most 
enchanting loveliness. A tall, slight, venerable 
Briton, who sat reading the London " Athe- 
naeum" on deck, had attracted my attention 
by his quiet, gentlemanly bearing, and his in- 
telligent look. It proved to be Mr. George 
Pinlay, the learned author of the " History 
of the Byzantine Empire," of " Greece under 
the Romans," and other well-known standard 
works, who was returning to Athens, where 
he has lived for many years, from a journey in 
pursuit of health among the Greek islands. 
Mr. Pinlay, with a courtesy to a young stran- 
ger which evinced his kindness of heart, took 
pleasure in pointing out to me the many ob- 
jects of immortal interest which we passed. 
As I was leaning over the side of the vessel 
after we had left JEgina behind us, he came 
to me and said, — quoting the lines of Childe 
Harold, — " Here you can say, — 

' Wandering in youth, I traced the path of him, 
The Roman friend of Rome's least mortal mind, 
The friend of Tully : as my bark did skim 
The bright blue waters with a fanning wind, 
Came Megara before me, and behind 
JEgina lay, PEiRiEUS on the right, 
And Corinth on the left : ' " 



FROM NAPLES TO ATHENS. 13 

the same " corpses of noble cities " which 
prompted those moralizing strains of Sulpicius, 
which we read on the old college benches. 
" Wandering in youth ! " I repeated the words 
to myself, for I had been feeling lonely, and 
they suggested the high enjoyments of which 
a little loneliness and privation are only the 
necessary condition. As we enter the harbour, 
a sarcophagus, hollowed out of the rock at the 
water's edge, is seen, near which lie the frag- 
ments of a large column. This is called the 
monument of Themistocles, — most appropri- 
ately situated in sight of the scene of his great 
victory on the one hand, and the city he saved 
on the other. Mr. Finlay told me that he 
once made Lord Byron very angry by saying 
to him that he ought not to have spoken of 
the hero's tomb as standing 

" High o'er the land he saved in vain," 

but rather as low in the sea. 

The entrance of the haven of the Peirseus is 
extremely narrow, but the harbour itself deep 
and commodious. Conspicuous among the ves- 
sels here sheltered was the American war- 



14 HELLAS. 

frigate Cumberland, whose fine model and 
beautiful proportions drew forth the most rap- 
turous expressions of delight from some intelli- 
gent French gentlemen on board of our steam- 
er. A French fleet, of some thirteen vessels 
of war, was lying in the Gulf of Salamis, 
awaiting, like the English fleet at Malta, the 
expected crisis at Constantinople. Taking a 
boat, I was soon on Attic soil ; and, avoiding 
any detention with my luggage by leaving a 
drachma at the custom-house, was directly 
seated in a carriage, with Thessalian horses, 
and on my way to the venerable city of 
Athena. On we went, racing from the Pei- 
raeus to Athens ; for my carriage had the start, 
and the drivers from other hotels were emu- 
lous ; but, after several spirited trials, they 
abandoned the attempt to pass us. 

" And this is Athens ! " said I, not without 
surprise, when, after riding half an hour on 
the jolting and dusty road, we entered the nar- 
row streets and began to pass the low, shabby 
shops and houses of the modern city. " And 
this is Athens ! " I said, with a different feel- 
ing, a thousand times afterwards, when, in the 



FROM NAPLES TO ATHENS. 15 

early morn, or beneath the glories of a sunset 
sky, I gazed on the -unrivalled loveliness of its 
ruined temples, or surveyed from its immor- 
tal hills the peculiar and enchanting land- 
scape, — the heights, the vale, the picturesque 
islands, and the calm, blue sea. Even the 
modern city improves on acquaintance. In 
the quarter of the town near the Palace, wide 
streets are laid out, lined with large and 
commodious houses, and new buildings are 
erecting in great numbers. This activity in 
building, these signs of growth, and the bright 
colours and neatness of the houses in that 
neighbourhood, quite remind one of a thriving 
New England town. 

But no one comes to Athens from more 
civilized lands to see the modern city. We 
come to examine the most beautiful and per- 
fect remains of ancient architecture ; to wit- 
ness the scenes associated with the history, 
and immortalized by the genius, of heroes, 
bards, and sages ; to realize the dreams of 
our youth, while standing with Demosthenes 
on the Bema, or Paul on the Areopagus, wan- 
dering with Plato in the groves of the Acad- 



16 HELLAS. 

emy, or recalling the sublimest strains of 
ancient tragedy on the hill Colonos. And 
nowhere does the classic pilgrim find so many 
shrines to venerate, — nowhere can he so read- 
ily recall and recreate the past. The chief 
ruins in Athens are very fortunate in their 
position ; in this respect, as well as in beauty, 
vastly superior to those of Rome. The city 
of the Caesars can, indeed, claim pre-eminence 
in the extent and colossal grandeur of its im- 
perial ruins ; but, with some happy exceptions, 
they are so surrounded and obscured by taste- . 
less, ugly, recent buildings, — there is such an 
incongruous mixture of the ancient and the 
modern, — that they do not make that uniform 
and homogeneous impression which one re- 
ceives from the monuments of Athenian great- 
ness. The beautiful and majestic columns of 
the Temple of the Olympian Jove stand, in 
solitary grandeur, on a broad, clean plain 
above the banks of the Ilyssus ; the almost 
perfectly preserved Temple of Theseus dis- 
plays its fair proportions, unhidden by inappro- 
priate buildings ; and the crowning beauty of 
the city, the abrupt, picturesque height of the 



FROM NAPLES TO ATHENS. 17 

Acropolis, with its peerless temples, rising in 
bold relief in the transparent air of Attica, 
greets the eye, to delight and detain it, from 
every quarter, — whether one strolls in the 
groves of the Academy, or wanders by the 
banks of the twin streamlets of the Athenian 
vale, or stands directly under its shade on the 
summit of the Areopagus, or mounts the Bema 
at the Pnyx, or surveys the beautiful and 
storied landscape from the neighbouring emi- 
nences of Mount Musaeum or Lycabettus, or 
the more distant heights of Hymettus, Pen- 
telicon, or iEgaleus. There is no finer situa- 
tion in the world than that of the Parthenon, 
as there is no finer edifice. 

The officers of the Cumberland made a large 
and most welcome addition to the small so- 
ciety of American residents in this city during 
my visit. At a brilliant entertainment, which 
they gave on board the vessel, on Wednesday 
evening, the 18th of May, there were present not 
only the American ladies and gentlemen then 
in Athens or at the Peiraeus, but one whose 
fame has been carried to the remotest corners 
of the civilized world, — Byron's " Maid of 
2 



18 HELLAS. 

Athens." She is now the wife of an Eng- 
lish gentleman, and rejoices in the name of 
Blacke ; her hair is still of the raven's hue, 
but years have robbed her of most of those 
charms which captivated the young poet. 
Those charms, however, cannot have exceeded, 
if they can have equalled, those of the lovely 
daughter of the " Maid of Athens," a young 
lady of about eighteen, who, as well as her 
father, mother, and brother, was present at 
this entertainment, and whose surpassing love- 
liness could subdue a far less susceptible heart 
than that of Byron. The object of the young 
poet's admiration was dressed in the French 
style, and wore a double band of gold orna- 
ments around her hair. 

I found a great interest felt by the Greeks 
universally in the difficulties existing in Con- 
stantinople, and great exultation in the ru- 
mours that Russia was ready to prosecute her 
demands, if uncomplied with, at the point of 
the sword. Fond dreams are still cherished of 
the re-establishment of a Byzantine-Greek Em- 
pire, — a " veov Bv^avTivoeXXrjvLKov Kpdros" 
as the "Athena" newspaper hath it. Even 



FROM NAPLES TO ATHENS. 19 

if that be not accomplished, the Greeks hope 
to gain, from the fall of Turkey, at least a 
large extension of their territory. Some of 
their newspapers suggest that the best prac- 
tical solution of all difficulties in regard to the 
balance of power arising from the fall of Tur- 
key (a fall before many years inevitable, in 
the opinion of the best judges) will be the 
bestowal of its European territories upon the 
Greek kingdom. When the diplomatists of 
the Great Powers — or their statesmen, if 
such shall arise — find out that the interests 
of mankind and the true interest of their own 
governments are not opposed to each other, 
we may hope to see the end of that hideous 
anomaly in Europe, a small and imbecile Mos- 
lem aristocracy upheld by Western bayonets 
upon the necks of a Christian population, and 
to welcome that race to a large share of the 
political power of the Levant, which by its 
intelligence, its ability, its purer faith, and its 
preponderance in numbers, is so fully entitled 
to wield it. 



AEGOLIS. 



To yap naXaiov "Kpyos ovrroBeis rode, 
rrjs ol(TTpo7rkr)yos akcros \vdyov Koprjs ■ 
avTTj 8', 'Opecrra, rov \vkoktovov Oeov 
dyopa Avkelos ' ov£ dpKTTepas 6° oSe 
"Upas 6 kXclvos vaos' oi 6° iKavofieis, 
(pdaKeiv MvKrjvas ras 7ro\vxpvo-ovs opav* 

Sophocles. 



Glad enough was I, on the morning of the 
21st of May, to leave the hot air and arid soil 
of Athens, for a short excursion in Argolis 
and on the Isthmus of Corinth. Rising before 
the break of day, our party, consisting of Mr. 
Blackie, the learned Professor of Greek at 
the University of Edinburgh, Mr. Clyde (a 
young Scotchman spending a year at Athens 
for the purpose of acquiring the modern Greek 
language),* and myself, with our intelligent 

* Mr. Clyde has given the world some of the fruits of his 
diligent study, in an admirable pamphlet, entitled, "Romaic 
and Modern Greek compared with one another, and with 
Ancient Greek," (Edinburgh, 1855,) highly and justly eulo- 
gized by Lord Broughton for the "valuable information and 
sound criticism " it contains on the subject in question. 



ARG0LIS. 21 

guide, Francois Vitalis, drove to the Peiraeus, 
where we took the French steamer for Nauplia. 
The deck of a steamboat on Greek waters 
presents a gay and novel scene to an American 
eye. Under the shade of the awnings, groups 
of men, women, and children may be seen 
lying on the Turkey mats, which they carry 
to enable them to spread a couch in almost 
any situation ; some sleeping, some eating, or 
drinking wine from earthen bottles ; others 
amusing themselves in conversation, or assist- 
ing their meditations by a pipe, or, more com- 
monly, an extemporaneous cigar, made by 
rolling up a mass of the mild tobacco of the 
country within a piece of thin white paper. 
The bright hues and striking contrasts of 
colour in the picturesque costume of the men 
heighten its effect. A long woollen fez of 
bright crimson, woven without seam, falling 
gracefully over one side, and adorned with 
a tassel of blue silk, forms the head-dress ; a 
full, spreading kilt or tunic of white linen, the 
fustanella, is the principal article of clothing 
for the body, relieved by a rich jacket or 
waistcoat, without sleeves, elaborately wrought 



22 HELLAS. 

of silk or worsted, blue, green, brown, black, 
or of several colours combined, and frequently 
adorned by ornaments in gold or silver thread. 
In front of this jacket a pouch or pocket is 
often attached, always highly ornamented. A 
red sash around the waist secures the grace- 
ful setting of the tunic, which hangs in mul- 
titudinous folds beneath. Fine white drawers 
are worn upon the legs, and rich crimson or 
scarlet buskins, of silk, or other delicate ma- 
terial, extend from the knees to the feet, 
which are clad in bright slippers. These 
buskins or leggings are elaborately wrought, 
and form one of the most striking parts of 
the costume. The dress I have described 
is the one worn by the more wealthy. Some 
wear garments similar in form, but of less 
costly materials ; coarse leather buskins may 
be seen in place of elegant silk or woollen ; 
a simple straw hat may be worn on the 
head ; and various mixtures of the Frank 
and Greek costumes are noticed, while many 
Greeks adopt throughout the dress of North- 
ern Europe. The lower orders to a great 
extent discard the more expensive and easily 



ARGOLIS. 23 

soiled tunic, and wear beneath their sim- 
ple jacket an ungainly dress of dark cloth, 
extending from the waist to the knees, in form 
a ridiculous mixture of petticoat and breeches, 
— a garment that would put to shame Mrs. 
Bloomer herself. Below the knees their legs 
are bare. The waddling gait which they seem 
to have, as these broad folds flap about their 
legs, is anything but graceful. Their dark 
complexions, sometimes still darker than those 
of mulattoes, are another striking feature in 
the appearance of the groups on deck. The 
women are not remarkable for their beauty, 
and the old ladies are particularly hideous ; 
the girls, however, are sometimes pretty, and 
the young men generally have agreeable, intel- 
ligent, and manly countenances, and are in 
some cases decidedly beautiful, — with bright 
eyes, rich complexions, and noble features. 

The Greeks, wherever I met them, struck me 
as an intelligent race. There is, too, a manli- 
ness and self-respect in their bearing, which 
forms a pleasant contrast with the degraded 
aspect of the downtrodden inhabitants of the 
South of Italy. The latter people, in their 



24 HELLAS. 

appearance, realize most fully that eloquent 
description of the situation of the victims of 
oppression, " There is in their hearts no hope." * 
But the quick-eyed Greek walks erect in the 
proud consciousness of freedom, and points 
exultingly to the future, which is to develop 
the full resources of his country, and expel 
the yet lingering remains of barbarism. We 
could not but be pleased with the whole bear- 
ing of the bright-eyed fellows who clustered 
around us, and talked with great courtesy, 
and without reserve, of the condition and 
prospects of the kingdom, — boasting of their 
freedom from superstition and priestly domina- 
tion, as compared with Roman Catholics, and 
urging their youth as a nation in excuse for 
the defects of their civilization. 

Passing the islands of Salamis, JEgina, and 
Poros, we stopped a few moments at the beau- 
tiful town of Hydra, on the island of the same 
name, distinguished for its valour and sacri- 
fices in the Greek Revolution. This town, 

* God speed the day when this language shall be no longer 
applicable to the people of any part of Italy. 



ARGOLIS. 25 

built of clean, white, comfortable houses, and 
rising in a natural amphitheatre on the sides 
of a barren but grand and picturesque hill, 
presents a beautiful and imposing picture. 
Another stop at the island of Spezzia, — which 
somewhat resembles Hydra, but is smaller and 
much less picturesque, — and we were within 
the lovely Gulf of Nauplia, the Sinus Argoli- 
cus. When we at length entered the harbour 
of Nauplia, a scene of unusual grandeur and 
beauty was spread before us. On every side, 
except where the plain of Argos meets the sea 
by the side of the town, rise noble mountains, 
which, though barren and unclad with trees 
or verdure, delight the spectator by that pic- 
turesqueness of outline and beauty of colour 
— blue and brown and gray and purple — 
which give the hills of Greece their peculiar 
charm. The bends of the shore afford the 
view of land on all sides, and it seemed as if 
we were floating on some grand mountain 
lake. Before us rose the precipitous and lofty 
rock of Palamidi, which forms the citadel of 
the place, — making Nauplia the Gibraltar 
of Greece. Another picturesque but inferior 



26 HELLAS. 

height, on its flank, is also fortified; and a 
little island, sleeping on the calm bosom of the 
water, is covered with a fort. A small but 
trim Greek corvette displayed the white and 
blue stripes and the blue cross, — the national 
flag, — which also waved from the fortresses. 
A few trading vessels and countless little boats 
lay in the spacious harbour. The town looked 
neat and pleasant from the water, and the rare 
but delightful sight of rich, green herbage was 
afforded by the long and grassy plain of Ar- 
gos. And all was flooded with the light, and 
covered by the transparent vault, of a Gre- 
cian sky. 

Kefreshed by a good dinner at the Hotel of 
the Peace, 'SevoBo^elov rj Elprivrj (sic), we took 
an evening walk in the town and neighbour- 
ing meadows. Our hotel was on the principal 
square, which, surrounded with respectable 
buildings, adorned with plane-trees, and fre- 
quented by well-dressed citizens and soldiers, 
gave us a favourable impression of the place 
at the outset. Another but smaller square 
lies at the end of a street which runs from the 
centre of this one, and fronts the old palace 



ARGOLIS. 27 

of the king, a decent yellow building, two 
stories in height. We noticed, as we walked 
through the town, a certain style and elegance 
in the architecture, superior to the ordinary 
streets of Athens. The environs are well cul- 
tivated, and clad with grain, tobacco, grape- 
vines, currant-vines, and orchards of figs and 
mulberries. A large species of reed, very tall 
and stout, grows in the plain, and is often 
planted for hedges ; and wild almonds abound. 
Water is found in abundance, and distributed 
by machines for irrigation : still in the land of 
Danaus survives the art he introduced. As 
we entered a garden to inspect a machine for 
raising water, turned by a donkey, the master 
and mistress of the house came out, and, with 
graceful hospitality, culled flowers and pre- 
sented each of us a bouquet of exquisitely fra- 
grant pinks and roses. In these groves we 
heard the shrill, clear song of the nightingale, 
and the sweeter notes of the blackbird ; nor 
did we fail to notice the peculiar sound of the 
frogs, — most unlike their croaking in America, 
and which corresponds exactly with the de- 
scription in the line of Aristophanes, and could 



28 HELLAS. 

not be represented better than by his phrase, 
" brekekekek, koak, koak." * The sound first 
named is the most sharp and shrill ; the sec- 
ond the more deep. One of them is made by 
one gender of the amphibious musicians, the 
other by the other. I venture to pronounce the 
shrill " brekekekek " the voice of the female, 
for, as I stood one day by the ruined bridge 
over the Ilyssus, near the Stadium in Athens, 
I heard the two parties striving for the suprem- 
acy ; loud and strong for some time both 
sounds arose in concert, — but at length the 
brekekekekers outstormed the rest, and their 
discomfited husbands gave them the field, ut- 
tering only from time to time, a discontented, 
but subdued and half-submissive " koak." 

Eeturning to the square in front of our ho- 
tel, we joined a group of men, women, and 
boys, intently listening to the strains of a street 



* Aristophanes writes ftpeKeKacet;, Kodg, Kodg, using £ to 
give the words a regular termination. The o and a in Kodg 
should be pronounced rapidly together, the a having the broad 
Italian sound. A strong stress should be placed on the last 
syllable of each word, as in the written Greek, — for the Attic 
frogs pronounce by the accents. 



ARGOLIS. 29 

ballad-singer, — a modern descendant of the 
Homeridae, — who, with lively gestures, was 
recounting how the great hero Marco Botzares 
slew forty Turks with his own hands at Me- 
solongi ; and when he was surrounded by the 
enemy, told them that his name was Botzares, 
and he would not surrender. 

Night brought with it its own peculiar clas- 
sical reminiscences ; for the " Bedouins from 
the bedpost," — as Felton translates ol Koplv- 
dioi, in " The Clouds," — mustered in great 
force, and charged with more than wonted 
fury. We passed the dark hours in alternate 
battle and repose. 

The next morning, having obtained permis- 
sion to enter the citadel, we climbed the north 
cliff of Palamidi by a winding staircase, built 
on the sides of the precipitous rock. Eight 
hundred and sixty-four steps conducted us to 
the outer gate, and some two hundred more 
to the summit. A magnificent prospect re- 
wards the toil of the ascent. The grand 
mountains of Arcadia, — the sides of one of 
which were white with snow, — of Laconia, and 
of Argolis lie around you on every side, with 



30 HELLAS. 

every variety of hue, from their different dis- 
tances and different exposures to the rays of 
the sun, while the Bay of Nauplia stretches 
along at the side, its clear surface, as we saw 
it, agitated by not a single ripple, and in colour 
of the softest, lightest blue imaginable. Near 
the shore, where there was a transparent and 
singularly beautiful green hue in the slum- 
bering water, boys were swimming, and their 
limbs flashed silver in the translucent element. 
The verdure of the great Argolic plain, in the 
foreground, on the side opposite the sea, gives 
grateful relief to the simple colours of the rocky 
mountains. The citadel itself was built by the 
Venetians, and contains a number of brass 
cannon, formerly belonging to their republic. 
It is at present garrisoned by a hundred and 
twenty-five or a hundred and fifty men. The 
prickly-pear grows abundantly on the rock ; 
here, too, I plucked the delicate and ex- 
quisitely beautiful blossoms of the caper-vine.* 

* I cannot forbear quoting Sig. Euffini's description of this 
lovely flower : " He presently came out of one of his hiding- 
places, shouting and waving a huge bunch of flowers, so in- 
conceivably gay, that they could only be met with, he declared, 



ARGOLIS. 31 

After inspecting this modern citadel, we 
drove to one of the most ancient fortifications 
in the world, — the remains of the walls of 
Tiryns, Tipvvs recx^ecaa, — " three thousand 
and two hundred years old " by mythical chro- 
nology. The walls consisted of two enclosures 
— an upper and a lower one — on the sides of 
a small, island-like hill, which rises steep and 
precipitously from the plain, and was occupied, 
as Curtius conjectures, as a fore-post of the 
Achaians against the Asiatic immigrants who 
stationed themselves in Nauplia. They are the 
best specimens extant of the fortifications of 
the heroic age, and are built in what is called 
the Cyclopean style, — of huge, irregular po- 
lygonal blocks of stone, without cement, the 

on the way to the gayest village in the world. From the 
centre of each of the large white blossoms he held in his hand, 
there sprung up a long, elegant aigrette of deep lilac stamens. 
The ensemble, so rich and delicate, had a certain resemblance 
to the tail of a white peacock. " What can it be ? " said Lucy. 
"It is the Capparis spinosa," answered Antonio, u and these 
flowers you admire so much are but capers in full blossom, 
best known for culinary purposes/' — Dr. Antonio, p. 187. 
The white blossoms are faintly streaked with pink or purple. 
It is the unopened buds which are used for the table. 



32 HELLAS. 

interstices having been neatly filled with little 
stones, most of which have fallen out. The 
size of the blocks is stupendous, — some being 
seven feet square, and others ten feet in length. 
They excited such wonder in Pausanias, that he 
says the smallest of them could not have been 
moved at all by a yoke of mules, and compares 
the whole structure to the Pyramids. The 
ground around is strewn with fallen rocks, and 
the walls still standing are in some places giv- 
ing way. Two singular covered passage-ways 
or corridors, in the body of the wall, remain ; 
the eastern one alone in any great complete- 
ness. It is curious on account of its arch- 
shaped roof, which, however, is by no means 
built on the principle of the arch, — the long- 
est stones being used towards the top of the 
walls of the two sides, and their weight, where 
supported, compensating for the projection 
necessary to make the triangular form of the 
top of the chamber. The length of this gal- 
lery is about one hundred feet, its height ten 
or twelve, and its breadth five. There are six 
niches, or closed door-shaped windows, with 
arched tops, in the outer wall. For what pur- 



ARGOLIS. 33 

pose these galleries were built, is a puzzle- 
which baffles antiquarians. Of the city, which 
was destroyed nearly five hundred years before 
Christ, no vestiges remain except the huge 
walls. 

Among the ruins of the fortifications we 
noticed tall hollyhocks growing wild, and num- 
berless thistles. The latter plant is found 
everywhere, and in great variety, in these 
regions. While searching for the entrance 
to the most ruined gallery, I was suddenly 
startled by being violently struck in the face by 
some tiny missile and a little stream of water. 
My assailant proved to be a harmless vine of 
the wild cucumber, which I had stepped upon, 
— a plant which runs upon the ground, and in 
its leaves and blossoms, and the shape of its 
fruit, resembles the edible cucumber. The 
fruit, however, is very small, and very prickly. 
When removed from the stalk, if sufficiently 
ripe, it ejects its seeds and a little water from 
the stem end with great violence. 

An hour's drive farther, and we were on the 
site of the renowned old city of Argos, the 
cradle of Hellenic history. Of its ancient edi- 
3 



34 HELLAS. 

•fices there are hardly any vestiges remaining, 
except its vast theatre's sixty-seven rows of 
seats, hewn from the solid rock on the curving 
sides of a hill, and some parts of the wall of the 
citadel, crowning the lofty height of Larissa, 
behind the town. The modern village consists 
of a number of low huts, surrounded by pleas- 
ant gardens of mulberries and figs. Here we 
were reminded of Italy, by a troop of children 
who beset us, begging for five-lepton pieces (a 
small copper coin) ; but this was almost the sole 
instance of such an annoyance I met with in 
Greece ; and, indeed, it was nothing compared 
with the insolent importunity of men, women, 
and children in an Italian town. We seated 
ourselves on the stone benches of the theatre, 
which in old time accommodated sixteen thou- 
sand spectators, and looked out on modern 
Argos. A glance at the ruins of a temple, in 
which the secret passage-ways of the artful 
priests have been exposed to profane eyes, and 
at the oracular cave of Apollo, and we were 
again seated in the carriage on our return to 
Nauplia. A young Greek whom we saw on 
our way, — the centre of a laughing group of 



ARGOLIS. 35 

youth, himself towering above them all, — in 
his manly frame, his black clustering hair, 
flashing eyes, and rich complexion, was the 
very incarnation of that ineffably beautiful 
Achilles of the Pompeian picture.* 

The green marshes of Lerna, at the south- 
ern extremity of the plain of Argos, we looked 
at from a distance. They are the Hydra of 
mythology ; its heads, their many fountains, 
of which if one were stopped others burst out 
elsewhere, till, by burning the woods which 
sheltered them, the mythic drainer and re- 
claimer of the land was enabled to conquer 
the monster. 

The next morning beheld us, at about four 
o'clock, mounted on horses, ready for a long 
day's ride. Following the carriage-road until 
we came to Tiryns, we struck into a narrow 
path, which conducted us for a long distance 
over the plain to the neighbourhood of Mycenae. 
Here we diverged, and, riding over several 
steep and rocky hills, soon found ourselves 
before the so-called Treasury of Atreus and 

* The picture which represents Achilles delivering Briseis 
to the heralds who were to convey her to Agamemnon. 



36 HELLAS. 

Tomb of Agamemnon. This is a great subter- 
ranean dome, fifty feet in height, and of about 
the same diameter, built of massive parallelo- 
gram blocks of conglomerate. A passage-way, 
twenty feet wide, protected on either side by 
massive walls, leads down to the building. 
Two slabs of enormous size form the roof of 
the entrance ; the larger one is twenty-seven 
feet long, three and three quarters wide, and 
eighteen or twenty feet in horizontal thick- 
ness. Its weight, according to the calcula- 
tions of the French expedition, is 372,000 lbs. 
What skill, and what powerful machines, must 
have been employed in placing it in its present 
position ! The whole doorway is simple and 
massive ; the effect of its proportions, half 
Egyptian, half Doric. Above the lintel is a 
large triangular opening. A vertical section 
of the dome would present a parabolic curve. 
The stones of which it is built are laid in reg- 
ular circular courses, contracting as they rise, 
till the uppermost ring becomes so narrow that 
a single copestone (now displaced) capped the 
whole. In each course, the blocks touch each 
other with their interior edges, and for a little 



ARGOLIS. 37 

distance beyond, while the interstices left, as 
they extend outwards, are filled with small 
stones, driven in very compactly. 

Even in its present naked simplicity, the 
effect of the grand structure is very impos- 
ing ; but it was originally brilliant with orna- 
ment. At regular distances on the walls are 
seen the holes formerly filled with broad- 
headed brazen nails, portions of which still 
remain in a few places ; fragments of plates 
of metal have been found in the building ; 
and the conclusion is well established that the 
whole interior was originally lined with bra- 
zen plates, and formed a " brazen chamber," 
of the same character as those mentioned in 
the early legends of Greece. On the exte- 
rior, also, we find on the portal indications of 
former adorning. On each side of the doorway 
and above it are two wide parallel depressions, 
one within the other, in which the old orna- 
mental facing was inserted. I noticed near 
either end of the outer one, above the door- 
way, a hollow in the rock in the shape of a 
pine-cone. These cones were so regular that 
they might almost be taken as designed them- 



38 HELLAS. 

selves for simple ornaments ; but they prob- 
ably aided in the fastening of the external 
coating to the walls. There are nail-holes, too, 
on the exterior, particularly on each side of 
the triangular opening above the door. More- 
over, fragments of semicircular attached col- 
umns, with zigzag ornaments, and of stone 
plates, were found in the excavations under- 
taken here by Lord Elgin. The stones were 
of various colours, red, green, and white ; and 
the restoration of the old front of the building, 
which Donaldson attempted from these frag- 
ments, presents a quaint and rich style of 
architecture, unlike any that prevailed in 
Greece in the classic period, and reminding 
one rather of Oriental or Byzantine art. 

We were admiring the simple majesty of the 
massive structure and the lofty dome, when 
the light from a fire of brushwood, kindled 
by Francois, attracted us into an inner cave, 
smaller than the other, and not constructed of 
hewn stone, but excavated in the crumbling 
conglomerate, which indeed is almost as soft 
and friable as earth. It is, by Curtius's meas- 
urements, twenty-seven feet long, twenty broad, 



ARGOLIS. 39 

and nineteen high. Over the entrance is a tri- 
angular opening, as in the exterior chamber. 
Antiquarians are divided as to the use of these 
apertures, — some thinking they were intended 
to receive sculptures, similar to that above 
the Gate of the Lions ; others, perhaps with 
more reason, regarding them as designed to 
introduce light into the apartments. Our 
guide called this rude excavation Agamem- 
non's Tomb, giving the name of the Treasury 
of Atreus to the larger chamber ; and he fol- 
lows the judgment of some of the best scholars, 
in thus taking the inner room as a sepulchre, 
the outer as a treasure-house. Prom the earth 
above this ancient structure (which is so cov- 
ered that one might stroll over the knoll with 
no suspicion of the wonder beneath, were his 
eyes not attracted by the walls of the passage- 
way leading down to the entrance) I plucked 
some yellow flowers ; and a beetle and other 
insects there congregated attracted our notice 
from their great size and bright colors. 

Thence a short walk took us to the citadel, 
which was built on the summit of a steep hill, 
beneath higher mountains. The huge stone 



40 HELLAS. 

masses of the walls — in some places twenty 
feet high — produce a similar impression to 
that of the fortifications at Tiryns ; and they 
present a very interesting combination of the 
three different styles of masonry found in the 
ancient Greek walls, — the Cyclopean (which 
is the oldest), in which huge irregular stones, 
unhewn, are piled together, the interstices 
being filled with smaller stones ; the polygonal, 
of many-sided stones carefully hewn and nicely 
fitted to each other ; and the rectangular, of 
regular parallelograms. But the great wonder 
of the place is the gate, formed of huge blocks, 
two upright and a third horizontal, over which 
are represented, in relief, two lionesses, stand- 
ing, and resting their fore-paws on a pedestal 
whence rises a singular-shaped pillar, smaller 
at the bottom than at the top, and crowned by 
four round balls above its capital. This pillar, 
says Gerhard, is the symbol of Apollo Agyieus, 
or the protector of gates ; and the lions, be- 
tween which it stands, are armorial emblems of 
the Atreidse : on the chest of Cypselus, Aga- 
memnon has on his shield an image of Terror 
with the head of a lion. The heads are gone 



ARGOLIS. 41 

from the two lionesses ; it is evident that they 
stood out boldly from the wall, in full relief, 
facing all who approached, emblems of formi- 
dable might. I have seen no monument of 
deeper interest than this, — the oldest sculp- 
ture in Europe, — the first bud of that flower 
which blossomed in the Parthenon. Rude as 
the lions are, they are highly expressive ; "bones 
and veins and muscles are given with the clos- 
est adherence to nature ; " and they breathe 
already that life and freedom which, subordi- 
nated to law, is the glory of Hellenic art. 
Moreover, in the solitude of their situation, in 
the thought that they have stood unchanged 
through so many generations of men, and in 
the imposing massiveness of the gate and 
walls they adorn, is a rare combination of 
impressive circumstances. 

It was impossible to pass through this gate 
into the citadel, for the passage beyond was 
nearly filled with earth. The interior of the 
gate itself, however, had been excavated, and 
we stood under its massive portal, whence the 
King of Men sallied with his troops when he 
set out for the Trojan war. 



42 HELLAS. 

In a little valley near at hand, where we 
found a well and a few willows, we reclined 
in the shade, and took our simple breakfast, — 
drinking water from a leathern bucket. Not 
a human habitation was to be seen on the site 
of mighty cities in olden time ; a swineherd, 
tending his unpoetic charge, (although it, too, 
was suggestive of the Homeric times,) and a 
woman with a donkey, come to the well to get 
water, were all that broke the silence of the 
lonely spot. Spurring our horses, we set off 
at a full gallop over a beautiful plain, through 
which flowed a little stream, whose channel 
actually contained a good supply of water, 
unlike the dry beds of rivers we had passed.* 
The sight of the clear water and its pleasant 
murmur, the greenness of the shrubs and herb- 
age, and, above all, the gorgeous splendour of 
a wilderness of oleanders, — whose bright and 

* The mythic story of the punishment of the daughters of 
Danaus finds its explanation in the physical conformation of 
" thirsty Argos." w The numerous clefts and fissures," says 
Curtius, " greedily absorb the falling rain ; but it flows rapidly 
away over the hard ground, and the thirsty land constantly 
pants anew for refreshment." Hence the necessity, and " the 
unthankfulness and toilsomeness/' of artificial irrigation. 



ARG0LIS. 43 

beautiful blossoms adorned the plain by the 
side of the brook, far and near, — exhilarated 
and delighted us beyond measure. Through 
wild, romantic glens we followed this stream 
for several hours, — crossing and recrossing it, 
plucking the magnificent oleanders, and filling 
our hats and bosoms with them as we passed, 
and gazing with awe and delight on the grand 
mountains which met the view in every direc- 
tion. And such a sky ! Heavens of the ten- 
derest, most translucent white-blue, suffused 
with light, — an exquisite tint unrivalled else- 
where ; and, floating in them, the most deli- 
• cate little clouds. 

At last we came to a little garden in 
the wilderness, with an humble khan for 
the accommodation of travellers ; and here, 
in this beautiful oasis, beneath the shade 
of vines and fig-trees, we reclined and en- 
joyed a substantial lunch which our guide 
produced from his stores, and the no less 
grateful refreshment of a little slumber. But 
we were soon aroused, for we had a long 
journey yet before us ; and, ascending and 
descending mountains, by steep, stony, unim- 



44 HELLAS. 

aginable paths, sometimes following a stream 
flowing to the North, — for we had passed the 
water-shed, — we at length beheld, from the 
top of a hill, a grand, solitary valley impris- 
oned by mountains. In this vale rise three 
columns of an ancient temple, surrounded by 
the scattered remains of walls and pillars. 
They are of the Doric order, but of greater 
height in proportion to their diameter than 
is usual in that style. The pavement of the 
temple, and a few blocks of the lower courses 
of its walls, remain. They are built of a hard 
and coarse, but well-hammered stone. .The 
effect of these graceful, solitary columns, in 
that grand and silent vale, as we galloped 
towards them over the long plain, or rode 
slowly among the fallen blocks which strew 
the ground around them, was most impressive. 
Retracing our course to the other end of the 
valley, passing some shepherds, whose rude 
huts were placed in the neighbourhood of their 
flocks of goats feeding in this solitary spot, 
and who offered us silver coins of Alexander 
the Great, we visited the remains of the great 
Theatre of Nemea, of which little more than 



ARGOLIS. 45 

the outline can now be traced, lying on the 
side of a hill. We were on the scene of the 
renowned Nemean Games ; and no site could 
be more appropriate for such festivals than 
this magnificent valley. On the side of a high 
hill above the theatre, Francois showed us 
what is called the cave of the Nemean lion 
which was slain by Hercules. The old hero 
began to seem to us as a real existence, for it 
was not the first of the scenes of his exploits 
we had seen on our journey. We had been to 
Tiryns, where he was brought up ; to Argos 
and Mycenas, the home of his tyrant, Eurys- 
thenes ; from the hills of Argos we had gazed 
on the Lernasan Marsh, where he killed the 
hydra ; and soon from the hills of Corinth we 
beheld Mount Cithasron, famed for his youth- 
ful prowess. 

New mountains and ravines were to be 
passed before we reached Corinth. Our road 
was sometimes in the bed of a torrent, and 
always through wild and romantic scenery. 
The hills began to assume a peculiar appear- 
ance. Many of them are composed of masses 
of hard, white clay, rising precipitously from 



46 HELLAS. 

the ravines, and often most singularly covered 
at the top by a horizontal layer of sandstone. 
Through the clay soil deep gullies have been 
worn by the torrents and the rains. The sight 
of running water and the exquisite oleanders 
still gladdened our eyes, and at last we reached 
the final ridge which separates the Pelopon- 
nesus from the Isthmus, and beheld Parnassus 
in the distance, veiling in clouds his awful 
brow, Helicon, and Cithaeron, and picturesque 
groups of other more neighbouring mountains, 
the bold height of Acrocorinthus, the modern 
town, and the long Corinthian Gulf. We en- 
tered the little town, and, in a clean and com- 
fortable inn, enjoyed sound repose, after the 
fatigues of a twelve hours' ride. The next 
morning we visited the seven Doric columns, 
the very ancient ruins of the old Greek city, 
and, after a ride of nine miles across the 
Isthmus, with its picturesque dells and ridges, 
covered with grain-fields and dwarf pines, — 
glancing, as we passed, at the spot where the 
Isthmian Games were celebrated, and at the 
remains of the Isthmian wall, — took an Aus- 
trian steamer at Kalimaki for the Peirseus. 



ARG0LIS. 47 

I could not tire of looking down into the 
water as we ploughed the Saronic Gulf. Its 
colour was an exquisite light blue, very like 
that in the Azure Grotto at Capri. The heav- 
ens were of a similar delicate hue ; and a few 
light, lovely clouds hung in the blue upper sea. 

After dining at the clean hotel, we took a 
boat for the tomb of Themistocles. Fragments, 
about twelve in number, of a large unfluted 
pillar of stone lie strewn around. Near it, two 
sarcophagus-like depressions are hollowed in 
the rock, and filled with the water of the sea. 
The column, from its size, must have been 
intended as a memorial of something ; and it 
stands where rose the hero's monument, " by 
the sea's margin, on the watery strand." 



FROM ATHENS TO PARNASSUS. 

" Nullum est sine nomine saxum." 

Lucan. 

With my agreeable and accomplished friend, 
Professor Blackie, I left Athens on the morn- 
ing of the 2d of June, for a ten days' journey 
on horseback in Northern Greece. Besides 
our dragoman or guide, we were attended by 
the " master of the horses," a chief cook, an 
assistant cook, and two servants in charge of 
the three mules which carried our beds, pro- 
visions, and clothing. Rising at early dawn, 
after refreshing ourselves with a cup of black 
coffee and a slice of bread, it was our custom 
to set out with the first rays of the sun, and 
ride for four or five hours, till we reached some 
khan, where, beneath the shade of a tree, the 
table our dragoman carried was spread, and 
the best of breakfasts furnished by our skilful 
cooks. Our eager appetites appeased, rambles 



FROM ATHENS TO PARNASSUS. 49 

at will among the rocks, mollesque sub arbore 
somni, beguiled the hours till the heat of mid- 
day began to abate, and we mounted again for 
another ride of four or five hours, to our stop- 
ping-place for the night. This was generally a 
kind of khan, where the cooks found a kitchen 
of which they could have the use, and an upper 
chamber was ready for our beds. Our guide 
carried cot-bedsteads and good beds, with flan- 
nel blankets and other clothing, so that in 
these rude apartments we passed the nights 
in entire comfort. A family owning the house 
is generally found in the room which serves 
for the kitchen. In our bedroom, or in the 
open air, as we chose, the dinner-table was 
spread, with luxury as well as abundance ; 
indeed, as, seated on our camp-stools, we par- 
took of the six courses, we sometimes thought 
we would gladly exchange them for fare more 
congenial with the wildness of the scene. We 
gave the cook, however, in the most intelligi- 
ble way, the compliment of thorough apprecia- 
tion, remembering the dictum of physicians, 
that a generous diet is the best for travellers 
in hot countries. Dining with the first even- 
4 



50 HELLAS. 

ing shades, a ramble in the neighborhood to 
explore whatever is of interest to be seen, or 
a talk with the people, particularly with the 
Greek boys, who are very intelligent and better 
educated than their elders, and then the wel- 
come couch. Such is the outline of a day's 
life. But how shall I describe the wild grand- 
eur of the hills and mountains of Greece, the 
calm beauty of her plains, the transparency 
and delicious blueness of her sky, the delight, 
the exultation of bounding o'er her " haunted, 
holy ground," where every scene is hallowed 
by the most fascinating associations, and there 
is " no rock without a name " ? 

It was a fine morning when our cavalcade 
left the city of Theseus, and took its way 
through the olive-groves which border the 
streamlets of the Cephissus, vineyards, and 
fields of maize, and by the farm and neat 
country-house of the Queen, to the impreg- 
nable height of Phyle. By and by large pine- 
trees, scattered here and there by the road, 
afforded a pleasing contrast in colour with the 
olives. A picturesque pass, through hills dot- 
ted with shrub pines, leads into the range of 



FROM ATHENS TO PARNASSUS. 51 

Parries, which stretches, in complicated wind- 
ings, from Cithaeron to the east, a natural bul- 
wark of Attica. Here, in a valley among the 
wild hills, we breakfasted in the pleasant village 
of Kassia, at an humble cafinet with no floor 
but the earth, in front of which we were 
accosted by the demarch of the town. Thence 
through grand ravines, — savage hills all 
around, the gray and brown of their rocky 
sides relieved by little pines, — having at our 
right the abrupt, double plunge of the moun- 
tain, forming the precipitous wall of a gorge, 
and passing through a valley gay with olean- 
ders, we rode to the bold rock, with its table- 
like top, which the fortifications of Phyle 
crown. The high and precipitous eminence 
is inaccessible on two sides, and protected by 
walls on the others. Portions of the walls are 
in good preservation ; they are built of large, 
regular blocks of stone, in two courses, the 
space between (which is very broad) being 
filled with a compact mass of large stones 
irregular in shape. A more secure retreat 
than this mountain fastness could not be im- 
agined. To the lover of scenery, its historical 



D'l HELLAS. 

associations are Phyle's least attractions ; from 
its reverend brow we looked out upon a broad 
and beautiful landscape, embracing queenly 
Athens, Hymettus, a part of Euboea, and the 
island-dotted sea. Over the old walls of the 
fort grow ivy and thorn-bushes. The wild 
glen which almost entirely surrounds the rocky 
citadel is one of singular beauty and grandeur ; 
but it is even surpassed by the glens a little 
beyond Phyle in the same pass. Continuing 
on our way over most picturesque hills, clothed 
with pines, a plant resembling box, and thick- 
leaved holly-like shrubs, we soon had a fine 
view of the strait and island of Euboea, and of 
a wide Boeotian plain, into which we descended. 
Passing a village at the right and two hamlets 
at the left, we dashed on to a little town, at the 
extremity of the plain, called Dervenosalesi, 
near which stands a ruined castle-like building 
of the Middle Ages on a romantic rocky height. 
The room we occupied for the night contained 
a rude painting of St. George, with a lamp 
hanging near it ; the mistress of the house 
kneeled and crossed herself before the image 
of the saint, before retiring to rest. 



FROM ATHENS TO PARNASSUS. 53 

The next morning, a little after four o'clock, 
we commenced the ascent of the stony, dif- 
ficult hills which bound the plain, and soon 
from the summit of one of them saw distinctly 
Cithaeron, Helicon, and the far-distant Parnas- 
sus. An intervening plain through which 
flows the Asopus, — a considerable stream, — 
and another ridge of hills, and we then looked 
down on the broad and fertile fields of Thebes. 
Descending, we crossed the Ismenus, a full 
stream, turning many mills ; and another 
stream flowing from a large basin, with whose 
pure, cold waters we refreshed ourselves and. 
our horses. We came soon to the moderate 
hill which was the Acropolis of the old city, 
and is the site of the modern town. It is of 
elliptical form, sloping to the north, and rises 
about one hundred and fifty feet above the 
plain. Renowned as was seven-gated Thebes, 
hardly a vestige of its ancient edifices survives. 
Pitiful pieces of marble from old buildings, it 
is true, are embedded in the rude walls of the 
modern houses ; and large regular blocks of 
stone, with a few fragments of pillars and archi- 
tectural ornaments, may be seen in the ruins of 



54 HELLAS. 

an old Turkish tower, a pier of a bridge, and a 
dilapidated church. We breakfasted at a khan, 
in the middle of the town. Modern Thebes 
presents the appearance of considerable activ- 
ity and prosperity. The one-story shops and 
houses on its principal street are generally 
furnished with awnings of board, — no small 
convenience in this climate. There are good 
schools here, and we met some intelligent 
representatives of the Theban youth, one of 
whom had read at his school two books of 
the Iliad. 

The arid summit of the Cadmeia was almost 
destitute of herbage. I succeeded, however, 
in finding a little flower, which, with others 
gathered at interesting points in my tour, has 
been given by the wife of our then Minister to 
Constantinople to a poetess almost as distin- 
guished for her scholarship as for her ex- 
traordinary genius, — Mrs. Browning, — the 
modern Sappho, 

" with aureole 
Of ebon locks on calmed brows." 

The plain around Thebes is not only fertile, 
but well cultivated. After descending and 



FROM ATHENS TO PARNASSUS. 55 

crossing a little streamlet,* we soon came into 
a region of secondary hills, — not of barren 
rock, like their loftier neighbors, but covered 
with light friable soil, and clad with waving 
grain, grass, or low shrubs, — actually green 
all over. Refreshed by their novelty and ver- 
dure, we wound our way around and over 
them, till we came to the plain of Thespiae, at 
the extremity of which, on two little hills, is 
the village of Eremokastri, our halting-place 
for the night. In the plain are foundations of 
ancient structures, one of which our guide 
called a bath, and the other a temple, and in 
the walls of a neat, whitewashed church, which 

* This brook, which flows to the northward, and empties 
into the Ismenus, is generally called Dirce by the topogra- 
phers. As we were approaching Thebes from the east, I was re- 
peating that magnificent ode from the Antigone, *Akt\s dektov, 
and was struck by the fact that the poet speaks of the rays of 
the morning sun as coming over the Dirce's waters, AipKaicav 
v7T€p peedpcov p.o\ov<ra. Was the poet regardless of the actual 
situation, or can we give the name of Dirce to the streamlet 
and fountain directly east of the town 1 

I may allude here to the great pleasure it was, in many 
places on my journey, to recall lines which old school and col- 
lege studies had fixed in my memory, in the very scenes 
which they describe. 



56 HELLAS. 

stands by itself on a hill near the village, some 
spirited bas-reliefs, as well as vine-leaf orna- 
ments, and the inscription of an old sepulchral 
monument, have been inserted. The most 
charming thing at Eremokastri is the view of 
Helicon and its neighbouring hills. The poetic 
mountain, as seen from this village, presents 
the appearance of a large cone, not unlike 
Vesuvius in shape, with a long ridge running 
easterly, terminated by another and smaller 
cone-like elevation. Its gray sides are dotted 
in many parts with trees, and trees appear to 
grow upon the very summit. But the hills 
running out to the north or northwest of the 
highest peak of Helicon present the most 
diversified, bold, and picturesque outline im- 
aginable. As we watched them, reclining on 
our carpets, after dinner, upon a little hill in 
front of our khan, their lines, now waving, 
now jagged, drawn in bold relief against the 
evening sky, and their summits radiant with 
tenderest hues in the sunset glow, they made 
the fairest picture of the kind on which my 
eyes ever lingered. Long did we gaze on the 
scene, till the gathering shades obscured its 



FROM ATHENS TO PARNASSUS. 57 

beauty, and aloft, near the summit of Helicon, 
a red light gleamed forth from a monastery 
embosomed in that inviolable seclusion. 

The beauty of the flowers and insects we 
met with on our excursion was a constant 
delight. In this day's journey, I plucked the 
most exquisite blue larkspurs, white and lilac 
candy-tuft, nutmeg honeysuckles, bachelor's- 
buttons, and mourning-brides. 

Pursuing our way the next morning, we 
soon reached a height whence we had a view 
of the so-called Copaic Lake. How in the 
world, in a land so destitute of water, a lake 
of the grand dimensions which Copais exhibits 
on the maps could be found, had been a mys- 
tery to us ; but what was our surprise, when, 
instead of a noble expanse of the liquid ele- 
ment, we looked down upon a broad, green 
plain, covered with grass and standing corn, 
grazed by large herds of horses and cattle, and 
only intersected here and there by a few small 
and sluggish rivers ; — no Scotch mountain 
loch, or bright New England lakelet, to inspire 
delightful recollections of our native lands, 
but an immense swamp, nearly dry, very like 



58 HELLAS. 

some portions of the Pontine Marshes. In 
the winter, however, the lake better deserves 
its name. Breakfasting at a pleasant khan at 
its margin, we galloped entirely across the 
cracked soil of the wide, green limne, fording 
four or five muddy rivers. We disturbed the 
solitary rambles of a stately heron, and started 
up three or four noble eagles, who rose in 
silence, and winged to the north. Crossing 
the Cephissus by a bridge, we came to a vil- 
lage occupying the site of old and wealthy Or- 
chomenus, on the side of Copais, and beneath 
a high hill still crowned by the remains of its 
citadel. Here is the so-called " Treasury of 
Minyas," almost the sole relic of the pre- 
historic grandeur of a rich and powerful city. 
It is a subterranean chamber, resembling the 
Treasury of Atreus at Mycenae ; but the stone- 
work of the top of its vault has been removed, 
and earth filled in, so that nothing is now 
visible save the upper part of its massive gate- 
way, spanned by an immense block of lime- 
stone, whose under surface is coated with 
smooth cement. This block is about three feet 
above the present surface of the ground. It is 



FROM ATHENS TO PARNASSUS. 59 

sixteen feet in length, eight in breadth, and 
above three feet in thickness ; there was prob- 
ably another slab in the architrave. The site 
is on rising ground, a little above the valley, 
here filled with olive-trees. 

Orchomenus was a principal seat of the wor- 
ship of the Charites, or Graces, whom Pindar 
invokes in his fourteenth Olympic : — 

" ye, that by Cephissis' waves profuse 

Dwell on the banks with steeds and pastures fair, 
Illustrious queens of proud Orchomenus, 
Listen, ye Graces, to my prayer. 
Ye whose protecting eyes 

The Minyans' ancient tribes defend, 
From you life's sweets and purest ecstasies 
On man's delighted race descend. 
Genius, and Beauty, and Immortal Fame 
Are yours ; without the soft, majestic Graces, 
Not e'en the gods, in their celestial places, 
Or feast or dance proclaim. " 

The Copaic Lake (or Cephissis, as it was 
more anciently called) produces (particularly 
in the neighborhood of Orchomenus) a reed 
which has been properly reckoned among the 
most important productions of Bceotia, as af- 
fording the material of which the flute was 



60 HELLAS. 

made, by whose use her minstrels were dis- 
tinguished. 

" Through vocal vent its music flows, 
Of brass with slender reed combined, 
That near the festive city grows. 

Where with light step the Graces move, 
Marking the measured dance they wind 
In cool Cephissis' flowery grove." 

There were annual festivals in honour of the 
Graces at Orchomenus, and these flutes were 
used in the musical contests. The sanctuary 
is supposed to have been on a site now occu- 
pied by a monastery. Here we found an 
interesting collection of remains of the old 
city, — a grand old altar, adorned with three 
deers' heads, with garlands depending from 
their antlers, and bearing a long inscription ; 
another altar, very large, which has been sev- 
ered in the middle, and now forms two altars 
in the church ; a statue in an Egypto-Greek 
style ; a headless warrior ; a torso ; and a bas- 
relief in the interior of the church, supposed 
to be of the three Graces. Among the gro- 
tesque paintings of saints with which the sides 
of the church are lined, I was attracted to one 



FROM ATHENS TO PARNASSUS. 61 

of a young man with a pleasing face, repre- 
sented in a modern Greek costume, and wear- 
ing arms. This is St. George the Young, a 
priest who fought in the Greek Revolution, 
and was canonized for his heroic exploits. 

Again plunging into the plain, a ride of 
about two hours brought us to Lebadea, — 
green, delightful village, with groves, and 
gardens, and full, babbling streams of water, 
— an oasis in a thirsty land. Fording the 
copious stream of its river, we followed up the 
bed of a little brook, through groves of figs, 
vineyards, and banks gay with flowers, till we 
reached the hill on whose sides the town is 
built. The streets are paved with large, 
irregular stones, slippery and disagreeable to 
the horses. The town is large, and one of 
considerable trade and activity. Awnings are 
spread across the street in many places ; the 
houses are open, and furnished with balconies, 
with quite an Oriental aspect. Our eyes glad- 
dened by its rich verdure, and our ears by the 
rushing sound of its full, rapid streams, we 
were charmed with Lebadea, and gladly ac- 
cepted it as our halting-place for the day of 



62 HELLAS. 

rest. In a wild gorge, near the town, beneath 
a precipitous mountain, crowned by well-pre- 
served mediaeval fortifications, the river bursts 
forth suddenly and violently from the foot of 
the rocky height, — a striking phenomenon, of 
which there are many instances in Greece. 

The rocks in this wild, romantic gorge con- 
tain several caves, and many niches artificially 
excavated to receive statues and votive offer- 
ings ; for here was the sanctuary and oracular 
cave of Trophonius. The precise position of 
the cave has not been ascertained, nor is it 
known which are the waters of memory, and 
which of oblivion ; but the religio loci is still 
extremely impressive, and one cannot but 
acknowledge the fitness of the scene to impress 
with supernatural influences the lively suscep- 
tibilities of the Greeks. As we sat on the 
rocks by the gushing river, two bright-eyed, 
intelligent boys joined our company, with that 
easy but courteous freedom characteristic of 
this people, and sang Greek serenades and 
stirring patriotic lays, which my companion 
acknowledged by a spirited German song. 
These lads, one of whom was very handsomely 



FROM ATHENS TO PARNASSUS. 63 

clad in the full Greek costume, were noble- 
looking fellows, and particularly manly and 
graceful in their manners. We noticed in the 
Greek men, in general, a proud and indepen- 
dent, but very easy and graceful carriage, and 
a bearing which happily unites manliness and 
courtesy. 

Beyond Lebadea, the hills were variegated 
with the bright yellow blossoms of a kind of 
broom, with thorn-like leaves. Singular fos- 
sils, resembling in shape the horns of some 
animal, (orthoceratites, probably,) abound in 
the road. We soon reached the plain of Chae- 
ronea, the scene of three important battles. 
Here, in the centre of an excavation in a little 
mound, not more than half a mile from the 
modern town, lie the fragments of one of the 
most impressive sepulchral monuments in the 
world, — the colossal marble lion erected over 
the remains of the Boeotians conquered by 
Philip in " that disastrous victory fatal to 
liberty." The stone is of a light slate-colour, 
and overgrown with gray lichens. Though 
the statue has been blown to pieces, — in the 
hope, it is said, of finding concealed treasure, 



64 HELLAS. 

— the head is still perfect, and some of the 
legs and other portions ; and this intensely 
interesting work of art might easily be restored. 
The gnashed teeth, the fiery eyes, the grand 
expression of a lofty spirit, unconquered in 
defeat, render this lion's head one of the most 
striking and noble sculptures of antiquity ; 
nor could we behold without deep emotion, as 
we stood by the grave of those brave men, this 
wonderfully appropriate monument to their 
spirit and valour, as admirable in defeat as in 
success. At the town, which we reached in two 
hours from Lebadea, we found well-preserved 
remains of the walls of the double-peaked 
Acropolis, and a small theatre, excavated in 
the solid rock, on the sides of the hill, — the 
seats well preserved, although their marble cov- 
erings are gone, and the two praecinctions, or 
divisions between the seats of the different 
orders of spectators, high and well-marked. 
Some lads followed me to the top of the Acro- 
polis, and sold me a few coins and a cameo 
head of Minerva. They gave their names as 
Achilles the son of Johannes, and Soter the 
son of Athanasius ; and in return I gave my 



FROM ATHENS TO PARNASSUS. 65 

own name and patronymic, in the same prim- 
itive style. In the plain, just below the vil- 
lage, is an old fountain, near which is a sar- 
cophagus, with a cavity some four feet long 
and two and a half wide, bearing an inscrip- 
tion to some one called a Platonic philosopher ; 
and there are many fragments of pillars of 
granite, resembling the beautiful stone quar- 
ried at Quincy. We had a brilliant, yet soft 
and mellow sunset, of red and yellow ethereal 
flame. 

Our horses ran away in the night, and while 
we were waiting for their recapture we talked 
with some rustics seated on benches in front of 
the tax-gatherer's shop, — one of whom had a 
cane which excited our cupidity, though the 
old man could not be tempted to sell it. The 
handle was the representation, carved in wood, 
of the head of a bald Egyptian priest ; on one 
side of the cane was carved a full-length figure 
of a man, with the inscription " Adam ; " on 
the other, a woman, labelled " Eve." Beneath, 
there were two other figures, representing 
children of our great ancestors. Below was 
carved, in bold characters, the inscription 
5 



66 HELLAS. 

borne on policemen's staves in Greece : " The 
power of the law," with this addition, " for 
boys and dogs ; " — IZXT2 TOT NOMOT 
Tf2N IIAIJnN KAI TflN SKTAflN. 

From Chaeronea we pursued our path through 
romantic hills and plains to Daulia, the ancient 
Daulis, at the foot of Parnassus, — passing on 
our way the conspicuous walls which crown 
the lofty acropolis of Panopeus. Delightful 
Daulis ! Thy bright, joyous brooks ; thy green 
meadows ; thy gardens of fig and peach, and 
groves of pomegranate, — the beautiful pome- 
granate, with its bright-green, glossy little 
leaves, and blossoms of gorgeous scarlet with 
yellow stamens, — form a picture of loveliness 
and fairy-like enchantment that will never fade 
from my memory. At this flowery hill-side we 
commenced the ascent of the haunted mount 
of song ; and all was " one vast realm of won- 
der," as, through mountain gorges and over 
grand ridges, we wound our way along to the 
vine-clad heights of Arachova, and thence to 
the cloud-capt summit of the sacred hill. 



ASCENT OF PARNASSUS. 

At Arachova we exchanged our horses for 
mules, — 

(" On Parnassus mount, 
You take a mule to climb, and not a muse, 
Except in fable and figure/') — 

and struck into a steep path, winding through 
vineyards, along the precipitous sides of the 
mountain, by which we soon gained a height 
commanding a large valley on the other side, 
fertile and well cultivated, though at so great 
an elevation, and diversified by a little sum- 
mer-village of stone, windowless houses, and 
two small sheets of water. We had now left 
grape-vines and cultivation beneath, and, turn- 
ing to the right, soon entered a forest of noble 
trees of spruce-fir, with long beards of gray 
moss. Before us, on a little donkey, followed 
by her colt, a pretty, bare-headed boy of about 
ten years sat sideways, breaking the stillness 



68 HELLAS. 

of that solitude by piping sweetly on a shep- 
herd's reed ; we longed for a painter to per- 
petuate the scene. Up and down, up and down 
rocky hills, and through evergreen groves, we 
pursued our way, till from one of the heights 
we looked into a large valley, surrounded 
by rocky, but tree-clad hills, whose summits 
formed the limit of trees on the mountain. 
Near the centre of the vale was a rude hut, 
built of stones picked up near by, and covered 
in part by boughs of fir, in part by an awning 
of black goat's-hair cloth. In front was a 
merry group of shepherds, amusing themselves 
by spinning around on a long, horizontal pole, 
attached by a pivot in the centre to a perpen- 
dicular post firmly planted in the ground, and 
allowing to those lying over either end, or 
hanging from it, a combined rotary and see- 
saw motion. Our little minstrel let his don- 
keys loose to feed, and joined this pastoral 
party, who soon dispersed to collect and milk 
their large flocks of sheep, feeding on the sur- 
rounding hills. The simple repast provided 
by our attendants was enriched by delicious 
draughts of fresh milk, presented by the shep- 



ASCENT OF PARNASSUS. 69 

herds, and new cheese-curd. Fresh boughs of 
spruce-fir were brought from the neighbouring 
hill-sides, and spread on the ground, under a 
large tree near the hut, for our beds. A large 
fire of dry boughs was kindled at our feet ; and, 
covered by thick capotes, we slept soundly be- 
neath the clear, star-studded sky, in the pure 
air and dewless night, lulled to rest by the 
musical tinkling of the sheep-bells, the sweet 
sounds of the shepherds' reeds, the clear cry 
of the cuckoo, and the watch-dogs' honest 
bark re-echoed from the mountains. Reclin- 
ing around the fire, the shepherds told their 
robber tales far into the night ; then sleep 
came over them, and no human sound broke 
the sublime stillness of the mountain solitude. 
Never have I enjoyed sweeter slumbers. Gently 
and imperceptibly I fell asleep, with none of 
the stupidity and heaviness which often brood 
over civilized chambers ; and awoke to greet 
the divine dawn with clearest head and most 
elastic pulses. 

At the first morning light, we again mounted 
and set out for the summit. Soon reaching 
the limit of trees, we beheld the long, gray 



70 HELLAS. 

ridges of Parnassus stretching far above us, 
with little patches of snow nestling in the hol- 
lows on their sides. Still up and down, by the 
rocky path, till the great backbone was reached, 
and, leaving the donkeys, we planted our feet 
on the everlasting rock, and pursued our way 
to the exulting peaks. By the side of minute 
streams, trickling from deep snow-banks, we 
picked delicate crocuses, violets, and other 
flowers of lovely hue,- some of which had 
climbed to shed their beauty upon almost the 
highest summits. At last, a glorious pano- 
rama, interrupted only in small parts of the 
horizon at the southeast, where a peak a little 
higher than that on which we stood, but inac- 
cessible on account of the snow and ice, ob- 
scured the view. All Greece lay outspread 
around us. Far in the north, blue in the dis- 
tance, but distinct and well defined in the 
clear atmosphere, rose grand and beautiful 
Olympus, its many rolling peaks gleaming 
with snow. A little to its right, the prominent 
cone of Ossa stood conspicuous, and, next, the 
range of Pelion ; on the left, the long chain 
of Pindus, the huge backbone of Greece, with 



ASCENT OF PARNASSUS. 71 

Othrys running from it to the east. The Gulf 
of Zeitun, beyond Thermopylae, Euboea, with 
the bright sea on either side, (for we could 
look entirely over the island,) and some of the 
isles of the lovely iEgean, adorned this side of 
the picture. At the west rose .the mountains 
of Acarnania and iEtolia, their summits snow- 
clad, and their sides exhibiting a rich variety 
of colours, in the rich deep red and brown and 
gray of the lower region, the green trees of 
the central belt, and the broken rock and 
snow of the upper heights. To the south the 
Corinthian Gulf stretched out in long extent, 
its waters of that soft blue, bathed in the in- 
tense light of a Greek sky, characteristic of 
Greek seas. Beyond were the mountains of 
the Morea, bold and varied, with snow glitter- 
ing on many of their summits, and their sides 
of various hues. And all these colours in the 
richly variegated landscape were embraced 
and canopied by the profound blue of the sky, 
in which, near the horizon, a few long clouds 
were suspended, of delicate texture, and with 
most exquisite blushes welcoming the early 
beams of the sun. 



i Z HELLAS. 

When at last we had bidden farewell to the 
snow-banks ten and fifteen feet deep, and fare- 
well to the peaks which had sprung to the 
height of nearly eight thousand feet above the 
neighbouring sea, new beauties in the land- 
scape unfolded themselves as we descended 
the rocky sides of the mountain. As w;e 
reached the region of trees, a thousand ex- 
quisite little pictures of wild glens of green and 
gray, fantastic branches, and intermingling out- 
lines of rock and tree, met our eyes ; of the 
blue gulf, nestled amidst embracing moun- 
tains, and sleeping like an inland lake ; of 
town and cultured slopes, of rugged cliffs and 
snow-clad peaks. Then what a home-like feel- 
ing as we greeted the dear valley of our last 
night's rest, the quiet shepherds, and the tune- 
ful flocks ! Here we again sat down on the 
evergreen boughs ; and, while we appeased our 
hunger, listened to the song of birds above our 
heads, the mellow notes of the shepherd's pipe, 
and the soft tinkling of the sheep-bells, and 
watched the shepherds beckoning their dogs to 
guard the flocks, or chatting on the grass be- 
fore their rude hut. For the first time I gave 



ASCENT OF PARNASSUS. 73 

full credence to all that poets have sung of 
the felicity and peace of pastoral life. 

Descending to the plain, with its little vil- 
lage, which we noticed in the ascent, we rode 
across it, and climbed a very steep hill, near 
whose summit is the Corycian cave, sacred to 
Pan and Corycian nymphs ; but more inter- 
esting in its poetic associations than in itself. 
It is a tolerably large grotto, with a slippery 
bottom, and a noble roof adorned with stalac- 
tites of graceful form but dull colour. Again, 
over hill and dale, among large trees of a holly- 
leaved oak, we came at length to the precipi- 
tous descent, which zigzags down the steep side 
of the mountain to Delphi. Down this we 
walked, the slippery path and rude stairway 
being too suggestive of broken necks for rid- 
ing. 

Kastri, as the modern town is called, is a 
dirty, straggling village, with narrow break- 
neck streets, and in every respect — except its 
delightful situation — as unpoetic in its aspect 
as possible. Women washing dirty linen at 
a public fountain in one of the streets — the 
Cassotis — suggested, both by resemblance 



74 HELLAS. 

and by contrast, the princesses of Homer. 
The ancient city of Delphi rose in a fine natu- 
ral amphitheatre, on the side of a mountainous 
height, which is connected with the range of Par- 
nassus, and, with the opposite wall of Mount Cir- 
phis, encloses a wide and most romantic gorge. 
A succession of terraces for building-sites was 
formed on the hill-side, supported by massive 
walls (of rectangular, and in one or two in- 
stances of polygonal stones), large portions of 
which are still remaining. Directly back of 
the town rises a bold height of precipitous 
rock, with a cleft in the centre forming two 
peaks, facing the south, and called in ancient 
times the Phaedriades, or " the Resplendent." 
These are the double-topped Parnassus of the 
poets, but in fact only a spur of the great 
mountain itself. At the foot of this cleft still 
issue the pure waters of the Castalian spring. 
An excavation in the rock, called the Bath 
of the Pythian Pilgrims, receives the stream, 
which flows thence down the sloping height to 
the wild glen below. The wall of rock by the 
spring's side is indented with artificial niches, 
large and small, for votive offerings. I drank 



ASCENT OP PARNASSUS. 75 

(like a good Roman) nine draughts from the 
poetic fount, one for each Muse. Not far to 
the south from the Castalian spring are the 
remains of the Stadium ; its outline can still be 
traced, and some rude seats in the rock at the 
upper extremity are preserved. Standing far 
up on the terraced height, it commands a 
delightful view of the Gulf, and of the wild 
picturesque gorge below the town. A little 
lower, near some tombs excavated in the rock, 
we enjoyed a charming prospect over the olive 
groves of the plain at the mouth of the 
romantic glen which Delphi overhangs, of 
Chryso and Galaxidi and Scala di Salona, 
the bay, the gulf, and the mountains of the 
opposite shore of the Morea, among which 
Cyllene is conspicuous. Still lower down, in 
the pleasantly situated monastery of the Pana- 
gia, a few beautiful remains of ancient art 
are preserved ; — a spirited and well-executed, 
bas-relief, representing a chariot drawn by 
four noble horses towards an altar ; a lion's 
head ; fragments of bas-reliefs, architectural 
ornaments, triglyphs, and columns. In an- 
other monastery we saw a few old pillars 



76 HELLAS. 

and inscriptions, and on some stones near the 
site of the Pythian sanctuary are some very 
long and well-preserved inscriptions, which were 
discovered by Miiller, and have been copied 
by the indefatigable German archaeologists. 

Still, as of old, the Muses of the poetic 
mountain use their witchery. The following 
song was written by my accomplished com- 
panion when fresh from their inspiration ; its 
author's kindness enables me to give it to my 
readers. The Professor retains the modern 
popular orthography and accent, Tlapvaaao, 

A SONG OF PAKNASSUS. 

BY JOHN STUART BLACKIE. 

On high Arachova's rocky slope 

The green vine richly grows ; 
From solemn Delphi's chasmed cliffs 

The pure fount largely flows. 
Brightly, brightly beams the sea 

From Galaxidi's ba}', 
And brightly from the glowing pole 

Streams down the glorious day. 
But me a soaring fancy lifts 

From this fair scene below, — 



ASCENT OF PARNASSUS. 77 

I '11 stride my jogging mule, and mount 
The lofty Parnassd ! 

Ho ! ho ! ho ! 
Ho ! ho ! ho ! 
The lofty Parnassd. 

Scramble, scramble o'er the ledge, 

And flounder o'er the stones ! 
Warily, warily, with sure foot 

Seize old Earth's giant bones ! 
Of Arab coursers I have read 

That breathe the fiery sun, 
And steeds of golden English lords 

For golden cups that run ; 
But when from Delphi's rock-bound nook 

Aloft I wish to go, 
I praise the stout, sure-footed mule 

That jogs to Parnassd. 

Ho ! ho ! ho ! etc. 



Now halt upon the lofty crag 

That rules the vale below ; 
'T is but the fringe of his huge robe 

Whose shoulder gleams with snow. 
Look down upon the red-tiled huts 

In the low, corn-clad plain ; 
The ploughman's home thou shalt not see 

So near this night again. 



78 HELLAS. 

Then up and down, and down and up, 
First right, then left, you go, 

And when your joints are shaken well 
You 're nearer Parnassd. 

Ho! ho ! ho ! etc. 



Wisely, wisely, like a ship 

When the strong northwester blew, 
Softly, softly, like the wave 

That mounts "a whirling screw, — 
Thus my good mule the steep abreast 

Hath made a zigzag way, 
Beneath the dark hosts of the pine 

That hide the gleaming day, — 
Pines that feed upon the viewless 

Yapor of the snow, 
Round the sides and up the back 

Of lofty Parnassd. 

Ho ! ho ! ho ! etc. 



The cuckoo sings, — the cuckoo's note 

How sweet in Parnassd ! 
And hark ! the clear, low-tinkling bells 

Of sheep that wandering go. 
And see ! a little shepherd-boy, 

With shepherd's simple skill, 
Perched sideways on his little mule, 

Comes piping up the hill. 



ASCENT OF PARNASSUS. 

Pipe away ! pipe away ! 

Nightingales below ! 
Cuckoo, and pipe, and tinkling bells 

On lofty Parnassd ! 

Ho ! bo ! ho ! etc. 



The shepherds built a leafy hut 

On lofty Parnassd, 
And there they keep fresh cheese and milk 

High stored on Parnassd, 
And eat, and drink, and watch their sheep. 

And keep a merry soul, 
And when their flocks come home at eve, 

They swing upon a pole, 
And laugh, and quaff, and tell old tales 

Beside bright fires that glow 
Beneath the clear and dewless night 

Of lofty Parnassd ! 

Ho! ho! ho! etc. 



Shake down fresh branches of the pine, 

And we will make our bed 
Where at our feet the dry logs blaze, 

And the stars shine overhead. 
Ask not for quilted coverlet, 

Nor broidered curtains here ; 
This rough capote shall wrap thee round 

Till streaks of day appear. 



80 HELLAS. 

So wise Ulysses slept of old, 

And great Achilles so ; 
So every lusty traveller now 

That 's fit for Parnassd. 

Ho ! ho ! ho ! etc. 



The twinklers of the night grow dim, 

The Borean sky is gray ; 
Come seize the path, my trusty mule, 

We '11 gain the top to-day. 
Scramble, scramble up the ledge, 

And flounder o'er the stones ; 
Warily, warily, with sure feet 

Hold old Earth's giant bones ! 
Now thin and few, like locks of eld, 

The straggling pines do show, 
And patches of white winter's robe 

Lie thick on Parnassd. 

Ho ! ho ! ho ! etc. 



Snow and stone, and stone and snow, 

Bare rock on rock all round : 
But still a lovely bright blue flower 

You pluck from stony ground. 
The little blue " Forget-me-not " 

With friendly face is seen, 
And in snow-watered sunny nooks 

Shine spots of grassy green. 



ASCENT OF PARNASSUS. 81 

Blank high-peaked ridges stretching far 

A grisly rampart show ; 
But lightsome summer breezes kiss 

The peaks of Parnassd ! 

Ho ! ho ! ho ! etc. 



Freely, freely, cast thine eye 

With raptured gaze around ; 
From peaks that cleave the skies behold 

Earth's various — pictured ground. 
Lo where Olympus hails the gods, 

And Pindus cleaves the sky, 
And where Zetotjni's waters round 

The high-souled Spartans lie. 
From Acarnania's craggy bound 

To steep Morea's snow, 
Hills on hills and seas on seas 

Thou greet'st from Parnassd. 

Ho ! ho ! bo ! etc. 

Where green Zacynthus' sunny isle 

With generous vintage glows ; 
Where from rich Corinth's mountain fort 

The mythic fountain flows ; 
Where famous Athens, girdled round 

With many a' storied hill, 
Her pillared wreck of chastest shrines 

Upholds serene and still, — 

6 



82 HELLAS. 

All lovely Greece before thee lies ! 

Canst thou believe the show ? 
Bless God who brought thy pilgrim feet 

At length to Parnassd ! 

Ho ! ho ! ho ! etc. 



The Roman and the Turk had swept 

For years this lovely land ; 
And many a grim old portal shows 

The Doge's stern command. 
But now the land hath snapt her chain, — 

A slave she ne'er might be, — 
And lovely Greece is free again, 

Mountain, and plain, and sea ! 
Canst thou believe the thing thou seest ? 

Though freedom's growth be slow, 
It grows, and ne'er shall die again, 

Round sacred Parnassd ! 

Ho ! ho ! ho ! etc. 

Now fill this bowl with Santorin, 

That hopeful blood may glow, 
While on my stout-paced mule again 

I wend down Parnassd. 
Live Parnassd ! live rock and pine, 

Green nook and bulwark gray, 
The shepherds and the shepherds' hut, 

And sheep that tuneful stray ! 



ASCENT OF PARNASSUS. 83 

Farewell, fair Mount ! and evermore 

May vines for free Greeks grow 
On high Arachova's slopes that fringe 
The lofty Parnassd. 

Ho ! ho ! ho ! 
Ho ! ho ! ho ! 
The lofty Parnassd. 



FROM DELPHI TO ATHENS. 

What is the secret of the mighty influence 
which the Pythian oracle wielded for so many 
centuries throughout the Grecian world ? Not, 
surely, mere vain superstition ; not, as some 
of the Christian fathers imagined, the agency 
of evil spirits. Its true source, as Curtius 
has shown in his admirable History of Greece, 
is found in the intelligence, the knowledge, 
the wisdom, and the foresight of the Delphian 
priesthood. Careful watchers of the course of 
events in every province of Hellas and the 
whole ancient world, deep students of human 
nature, and inheriting profound maxims of 
practical wisdom from their predecessors, by 
the legitimate exercise of human faculties they 
were enabled to give the wisest counsel, and 
often to predict the issue of enterprises ; while 
they had the cunning in doubtful cases to 
utter an ambiguous voice. Hence was it that 



FROM DELPHI TO ATHENS. 85 

Delphi was the true centre of Greece, — the 
keystone of Grecian unity, the guide of Gre- 
cian activity. 

As we rode out of Delphi in the morning, 
we stopped to examine some sarcophagi and 
tombs near the road on the hill-side, a little 
north of the town. We were particularly de- 
lighted with a sarcophagus of pure white mar- 
ble, its sides adorned with bas-reliefs of exqui- 
site finish ; and the slab, which once formed 
the cover, and now lies near by, surmounted by 
a mutilated but exceedingly fine and lifelike 
statue of a female, in a recumbent posture. 
The sarcophagus has been broken in two, but 
the parts are preserved, and might easily be 
united, so as to leave little trace of the injury. 

Along wild gorges, and through miles and 
miles of vineyards on the terraced hill-sides, 
we rode on to Arachova. It is sad to think 
that the generous product of these luxuriant 
vines should be ruined, as it is every year, by 
the almost universal Greek custom of putting 
resin into the wine, imparting a flavour unen- 
durable to a Frank, though acceptable to the 
taste of the natives. We tasted some of this 



86 HELLAS. 

vile compound at a khan in Arachova, in 
which enough of the original excellence re- 
mained to show that it would be a wine of the 
rarest richness and deliciousness, had it not 
been spoiled by the resin. Our host, who 
offered us this wine, was a man of noble 
figure and classic features. It is probable 
that the old Greek blood has been preserved 
in much purity in the region of Parnassus ; at 
any rate, the ancient type of face and form is 
often met with. At Ar&chova, as at Kastri 
and several other villages in the neigbourhood, 
the tiles on the roofs are kept in place by 
stones placed upon them. The same custom 
prevails in some parts of Switzerland ; and that 
it obtained in ancient Greece, also, there is 
reason to infer from the passage in Thueydi- 
des describing the attempted surprise of Pla- 
taea by a party of Thebans, in which the 
women and servants are represented as pelt- 
ing the intruders with " stones and tiles " 
from the house-tops. 

Through wild and picturesque glens, and 
grand gorges, we pursued our way hence, — 
the long, gray, bare rock of the heights of Par- 



FROM DELPHI TO ATHENS. 87 

nassus in full view on the left. Among these 
mountain passes (not far from the Triple Way 
where (Edipus met his father Laius) we were 
overtaken by a brisk shower, — the first rain we 
had seen for a month in this cloudless land, — 
and we were well drenched when we arrived 
at our khan at Lebadea. As one approaches 
Lebadea from Parnassus, hills of an alluvial 
formation, with loose, fertile soil, take the 
place of the rock-ribbed mountains. This 
chain of arable hills extends nearly to Thebes. 
The next morning, as we rode by the side of 
the Copaic " Lake," Nicolaos, one of our attend- 
ants, plucked long wreaths of beautiful and fra- 
grant white clematis, which grows in great abun- 
dance and luxuriancy by the side of the path, 
and we twined them around our hats. We went, 
but by a different road, — along the roots of 
Helicon, and passing the noontide by the waters 
of a sacred fountain, — to our old khan at Ere- 
mokastri, and there spent the night. As we sat 
enjoying the beautiful view of the neighbouring 
mountains, bright-eyed Greek boys told us of 
Klephts descending from Helicon to a village 
which we saw, and murdering a peasant to ob- 



88 HELLAS. 

tain his property, and this but a month before. 
They talked, too, of their studies, at the ex- 
cellent school in the village, and some of them 
offered ancient coins for sale. 

To the battle-ground of Leuctra we rode 
the next morning ; near it are the ruins of a 
Venetian tower. Thence to the plain of Pla- 
taea, — crossing the Asopus, muddy and sedgy, 
and riding through fields of yellow grain, 
enamelled with blue larkspurs, waving over 
the ancient scene of conflict. The site of the 
old city, on a gentle elevation rising from the 
plain, still exhibits extensive and interesting 
remains of walls and towers, built of large 
hewn blocks of limestone, considerably worn 
by time. The height of the remaining portion 
of the walls is, in general, but two or three 
courses. On higher ground, to the south, are 
remains of walls of the most ancient city. 
Some large, but coarse and rude sarcophagi, 
stand on the side of the hill. 

In the house where we breakfasted, which • 
contained but one apartment, its floor the 
ground, and with a long row of hens' nests 
near the fireplace, a boy, who had been to the 



FROM DELPHI TO ATHENS. 89 

schools in Thebes, showed us his little library, 
consisting of books of the Church, and several 
historical works, published by the American 
missionaries, and printed at the Greek press in 
Malta, about twenty years ago. My companion 
increased the young man's literary treasures 
by the present of a copy of a Greek transla- 
tion of Robinson Crusoe, recently printed in 
Athens.* 

Striking over the hills, along the sides of the 
long Mount Cithaeron, at whose feet Plataea is 
built, we come at length into the road from 
Thebes to Athens, one of the few roads pass- 
able by carriages which Greece can boast. It 
is, on the whole, a very good road, but in some 
places so rough and stony as to subject the 
strength of a carriage to a severe test. On a 

* No greater boon could be bestowed upon the Greeks than 
the translation into their language of some of the most whole- 
some works of English literature. The admirable version of the 
Pilgrim's Progress, published at Athens in 1854, is doubtless 
working good among them. " Poor Eichard " might teach 
not unneeded lessons of practical wisdom ; and, in higher 
fields, our language would afford much better aliment for their 
nascent civilization than the French, which at present, unfor- 
tunately, furnishes the larger portion of their intellectual 
food. 



90 HELLAS. 

high hill, rising abruptly in the picturesque 
pass between Cithaeron and Parnes, stand the 
high walls and towers of the acropolis of 
QEnoe. These are the best-preserved fortifica- 
tions we saw in Greece ; and their fortunate 
and commanding position adds to their impos- 
ing effect. In a guard-house, at the foot of 
the hill, we found a company of ten soldiers 
posted, and had a pleasant chat with their 
captain, who offered us resined wine. A little 
farther on, in the plain below, are the remains 
of a tower, supposed by some scholars to mark 
the site of Eleutherge. An hour's ride hence 
brought us to a solitary khan, near a deserted 
church, on a moderate slope, overlooking a 
valley surrounded by green hills. A large 
tree, of the holly-oak, spread its shadow near 
the khan, and cool breezes offered their re- 
freshment. Here we slept in the same room 
as the horses and mules, — a long apartment, 
its floor the earth. Xear our beds our dinner 
was cooked, by a fire made on the ground, the 
smoke curling upwards, and finding its way 
out as it could through apertures in the black- 
ened roof of tiles. In a long brick oven in 
the side-wall, large loaves of bread were 



FROM DELPHI TO ATHENS. 91 

baking ; a goodly number of fowls sat on the 
nests, or perched at the side of the room near 
the horses, — cats and dogs prepared them- 
selves for a night's rest, — and the servants 
stretched themselves out on their capotes, and 
soon were snoring around us. 

The next morning, after a pleasant ride 
among the pine-dotted (rather than pine-clad) 
hills, we came to the large plain of Eleusis, by 
the side of the sea. Across the plain stretch 
the arches of a ruined aqueduct, built by the 
Romans. I had already visited Eleusis, mak- 
ing the excursion in a carriage from Athens, 
from which it is eleven miles distant ; but it 
was delightful to see again the deep-blue waters 
of its bay, and the crags of Salamis. The 
greatest interest which attaches to Eleusis 
arises from its having been the seat of those 
august mysteries which gave men " sweeter 
hopes of a future life." The huts of the 
modern village are built near the site of the 
magnificent temple of Demeter. Fragments 
of columns of a large size, and of the most 
beautiful white marble, lie strewn around, 
and a few mutilated statues and sculptured 



92 HELLAS. 

reliefs are preserved in a rude little chapel ; 
large foundation walls, also, are still perfect ; 
but we found little else to testify to the splen- 
dour of the ancient edifice.* 

The hill of the acropolis of Eleusis is long 
and low, but steep and rocky, and well adapted 
to its purpose. Remains of the old wall can 
still be traced upon it. Prom it there is a fine 
yiew of the plain and the sea, including the 
Rharian field, where Demeter is said to have 
first sown corn. We rested at a clean and 
comfortable khan, where Prof. Blackie amused 
an intelligent company of boys by ingeniously 
comparing the men of the most important 
countries in the world to different animals 
with similar characteristics. 

Leaving the sacred city, we followed a most 
delightful path by the side of the exquisitely 
beautiful Gulf of Salamis, our prospect bound- 
ed by the brown and barren, but strikingly 
picturesque island. Nothing could be more 
unspeakably enchanting than those blue and 

* Very extensive remains of the temple and of the propy- 
ls a have been discovered in the present year (1860), in the 
excavations undertaken by the French government. 



FROM DELPHI TO ATHENS. 93 

historic waters, and the* contrast between their 
intensely bright colour and the various hues of 
the rocky shores. Passing the sarcophagus 
and the ruins of the large monument of Strato, 
built of exquisite marble, we crossed the salt- 
springs, which of old formed the boundaries 
of the Athenians and Eleusinians, and soon 
came to the picturesque pass of Daphne. On 
the left are rocks indented with rudely-carved 
niches, and bearing inscriptions which show 
that the place was consecrated to Aphrodite. 
Near the end of the defile, at the highest 
point of the pass, and in one of the most 
delightful retreats in the neighbourhood of 
Athens, is the partially ruined monastery of 
Daphne, the burial-place of the Christian 
Dukes of Athens in the Middle Ages. ' Its 
church, of the Byzantine order, bears marks 
of injuries suffered from the Turks, in its 
blackened and mutilated walls and mosaics. 
In the centre of the dome is a large and 
quaint half-length figure, in mosaic, of our 
Saviour. Here, as in nearly all the old 
churches we visited in Greece, new pictures 
and furniture have been very recently added. 



94 HELLAS. 

by the munificence, generally, of Greek mer- 
chants residing abroad, or of Russians. A 
threefold picture, representing the death, as- 
cension, and reception in heaven of the Virgin 
Mary, but just presented to the monastery, is 
admirable for the fine execution of many of 
its parts, and particularly the pure and deep 
expression of the faces, which are almost 
worthy of comparison with those of Fra An- 
gelico ; yet, as a whole, it has some of the 
Chinese-like stiffness characteristic of the pic- 
tures in Greek churches, which are still painted 
according to the traditions of the Byzantine 
school. 

After enjoying, for the last time, the pro- 
ducts of our cook's skill, in an excellent din- 
ner, we turned our horses' heads towards 
Athens. We passed four dromedaries " all 
in a row," giving the scene something of 
an Oriental aspect. Never did the city of 
Athens appear more lovely than when we had 
gained the hills whence we looked down upon 
it. The whole plain, stretching from Penteli- 
cus, between Parnes and Hymettus, to the 
sea, was spread out before us, the queen-like 



FROM DELPHI TO ATHENS. 95 

city in the centre, the graceful ruins on its 
acropolis transfigured by the last rays of the 
setting sun. The beautiful and picturesquely- 
outlined mountain of Pentelicus was all of a 
rich, dark purple, the long range of Hymettus 
was glowing in lilac tints, while the detached 
and romantic peak of Lycabettus, overhanging 
the city, shone yellow like burnished gold. 
The sea, calm and blue, stretched away in the 
distance, JEgina peered forth afar, and in the 
secure haven of the well-built town of the 
Peiraeus rose the graceful masts of two Ameri- 
can vessels of war, amidst the surrounding 
shipping, while the French fleet was distinctly 
visible near the entrance of the Gulf of Sala- 
mis. Along the old Sacred Way, by which 
the solemn processions moved to Eleusis, we 
rode, delighted by the beautiful scene ; we 
crossed the bridge over the Cephissus, where 
the initiated, returning from the celebration 
of the mysteries, bandied jests with the Athe- 
nian populace ; we passed the gardens of the 
Academy, and the site of the storied monu- 
ments of the Cerameicus ; and soon warm 
grasps of the hand, and hearty salutations of 
friends, welcomed us back to Athens. 



MARATHON. 

" Take Herodotus and Byron," said Mr. 
Finlay, " for your guides to Marathon." 

Aroused from short slumbers just after mid- 
night on the morning of the 18th of June, at 
one o'clock I was astride the same good white 
horse that had carried me to Parnassus, and 
on my way, by the faint starlight, to the scene 
of the first great recorded victory of civiliza- 
tion over barbarism. Besides the admirable 
guides which Mr. Finlay recommended for 
the history of the battle, the scenery, and the 
sentiment, I needed a path-finder and a servant 
in human shape ; and had engaged one skilled 
in his profession. He was taken, however, on 
this very night, with a Greek fever, caught in 
ascending Pentelicus in a hot sun the day be- 
fore ; but sent in his stead an intelligent young 
man from the " Seven Islands," whose best 
qualifications for his office were a plenty of 



MARATHON. 97 

good-nature, and a tolerable knowledge of Eng- 
lish. I would gladly have exchanged the 
latter for a knowledge of the country. Pass- 
ing the long, white, graceless palace of King 
Otho, built of limestone and stucco, and keep- 
ing the road near the banks of the Ilyssus till 
we had left Lycabettus behind us, as we rose 
to the great plain lying at the foot of the 
marble mountain, Pentelicus, and extending 
to the limerock sides of Hymettus on the one 
hand, and the winding ranges of Parnes on 
the other, a warm breeze saluted our cheeks, 
and drove away the chill of the lowlands. 
The thyme, and other aromatic herbs which 
clothe the plain, and feed the bees of Hymet- 
tus, filled the air with fragrance ; and by and 
by, in the broadening light, the delicate blos- 
soms of many varieties of flowers disclosed 
themselves, and the sweet matin songs of birds 
swelled upward around us. Little companies 
of peasants, — man, wife, and children, — rid- 
ing on patient donkeys, or driving donkeys 
laden with panniers of vegetables or bundles 
of firewood, passed us on their way to market. 
A little to my surprise, the guide struck into 
7 



98 HELLAS. 

a path to the right of Pentelicus, leading be- 
tween that mountain and Hymettus ; I knew, 
however, that, although the road to the left is 
the one pursued by travellers, there is a pass 
from the plain of Marathon, leaving the battle- 
field by the sea-side, and coming out between 
the two mountains ; and congratulated myself 
that I was about to explore a comparatively 
unknown route. But at length we were told 
by some country people whom we met, that 
we could not reach Marathon by that path, 
and must retrace our steps and take the other 
road. My pretended u guide " thus showed 
himself no less ignorant (I afterwards found 
that he was much more ignorant) of the way 
than myself. Could I have spared another day 
for the excursion, I should have been inclined 
to push on and endeavour to reach the plain by 
this pass ; but the danger of losing the way, or 
of being detained by obstacles such as marshes, 
thickets, and fences, and thus failing of reach- 
ing the battle-field altogether, induced me to 
prefer a certainty and take the beaten track. 
And so we rode back, and came out between 
the two mountains, and then striking over the 



MARATHON. 99 

fields along the side of Pentelicus, now among 
little bushes, now over ploughed ground, and 
now in the deep, stony bed of a winter torrent, 
among high and gorgeous oleanders flushing 
its dry sands, came to the little village of 
Marousi, in the midst of olive-groves, where 
we found an old man standing in the yard in 
front of his cottage, and took him to guide us 
to the neighbouring town of Cephissia. After 
taking a cup of coffee in front of a little cafinet 
in the centre of the village, I rode on by rich 
gardens of fruit-trees, watered by rills from 
the Cephissus, and turned to visit the kepha- 
lari, or fountain, where this stream takes its 
rise. In a natural cavity, some ten or fifteen 
feet square, and about the same number of feet 
in depth, with its sides protected by a wall 
which may have sustained some ancient shrine 
built over the fount, the clear waters of the 
pure rivulet spring noiselessly from the ground, 
through the large clean stones which cover the 
bottom of the pool. The bright, transparent 
waters fill their well to the depth of about six 
feet, and then flow off in sparkling, leaping, 
silver, thread-like streamlets to fertilize the 



100 HELLAS. 

gardens of the most delightful villages of 
Attica. Cephissia is the summer retreat of the 
Athenian court, the foreign ambassadors, and 
the wealthier families. Its beautiful gardens 
are filled with fruit-trees in rich variety, — the 
olive, the fig, the pomegranate, the peach, the 
nectarine, the plum, the pear, and the walnut. 
In its delightful shades and waters, its green- 
ness, and luxuriance of vegetation, it can 
hardly be less charming now than in the days 
of Herodes Atticus, of whose Cephissian villa 
Gellius speaks with such rapture. I break- 
fasted in this pleasant town. A noble old 
plane-tree, growing in the middle of a large 
square, into which the road had widened, 
spread its broad arms far and wide, and with 
its deep foliage cast a welcome shade from one 
side of the street to the other. Around its 
trunk is a level square, raised about a foot 
above the road, and protected by a border 
of stone ; here there are a number of stone 
tables and benches, on which quiet citizens 
were sitting, discussing the news and specu- 
lating on the future glories of Greece, or par- 
taking of coffee and spirits served from the 



MARATHON. 101 

rival shops on either side of the way. Under 
the beautiful leafy canopy I seated myself on 
one of the benches, and took the refreshment 
which my servant produced from his stores. 
It was nearly eight o'clock, and I found we had 
consumed five hours in wandering off the road ; 
no pleasant thought, inasmuch as, even without 
any such accident, a journey to Marathon and 
back in the same day with the same horse is a 
hard one for both man and beast. We found 
here, however, an old man among the loiterers 
who said he was thoroughly acquainted with 
the road to Marathon, and the battle-field itself, 
with all the objects of interest to a stranger ; 
he was a hale, active old fellow, although more 
than seventy winters had frosted his head, and 
I gladly hired him to guide us. So the old 
man, in his simple white sheep-skin raiment, 
trudged and trotted on before us, as brisk as a 
youth of twenty. 

On the north side of Pentelicus, the prevail- 
ing rock in our path over the hill was mica- 
slate, with the strata upheaved at a large 
angle. Young pines grow luxuriantly on these 
hills, and a great variety of shrubs and flowers, 



102 HELLAS. 

among which I noticed the beautiful inist-tree, 
and the graceful and fragrant clematis. Pass- 
ing, after a few hours, the little hamlet of 
Stam&ta, from a hill-top we caught a glimpse 
of the beautiful sea and shore of Marathon, 
and saw, as we descended a mountain slope by 
a long, steep path, paved in part with slippery 
stones, the little village of Marathona. Push- 
ing on towards this village, we came upon a 
large meadow, at whose western end, on our 
left, stood a high round tower of mediaeval 
date. Towards this the old Albanian began 
to run, pointing, gesticulating, and shout- 
ing, here was the battle fought ; this was the 
ground that had drunk the blood of the Turks. 
" The Turks ! " said I. " Pshaw ! show me the 
field where your old Greeks routed the Per- 
sians." " The Persians ? " — the old man had 
never heard of them ; the name of Miltiades 
was equally strange to his ears ; — so much for 
all his stories of guiding strangers to the im- 
mortal plain, all his boasts of familiarity with 
its localities. I explained the matter to my 
attendant, (for he knew no more of the his- 
tory of Marathon than the old rustic,) and, 



MARATHON. 103 

in the first flush of vexation, we spurred our 
horses and galloped away from this profitless 
servant. We came soon to the banks of a lit- 
tle river (its course dry in the hot season), 
which, coming from among the hills, and 
washing the village of Marathona, crosses the 
battle-field, and empties into the sea. On its 
side and in its bed rose countless oleanders of 
large size, with their glorious blossoms in their 
fullest beauty, — the finest specimens I saw 
even in Greece. By this flowery hedge we 
rode to the village, and, after inquiring of an 
intelligent citizen the proper way to the field, 
at once began to descend to it. We accosted 
some Albanian children playing near a well, 
but they did not understand modern Greek. 
Our path lay by the side of the river, or in its 
wide bed, covered with sand, and large, round, 
white marble stones. 

Reaching the field, I saw at the distance of 
about three miles transversely, near the shore, 
the mound which covers the remains of the 
one hundred and ninety-two Athenians who 
fell in the battle ; towards which we rode at 
once, thus crossing the middle of the plain. 



104 HELLAS. 

No house or building of any kind rises in the 
broad field, but here and there cattle were 
grazing, and we rode over the stubble of corn 
newly reaped, or plunged through high stand- 
ing grain, ripe and awaiting the sickle. The 
monument — simple, but more eloquent than 
the proudest trophies of brass or marble — 
was soon reached. It is a small tumulus, 
evidently artificial, and of light, crumbly soil. 
Its height is thirty feet, its circumference six 
hundred. A part of the mould has been re- 
moved or displaced, from curiosity to know its 
contents, in a considerable excavation at 'the 
top and on one side. Dry, pitiful grass, and a 
few thin, sickly bushes, are the mound's only 
covering ; bushes so blighted and eaten by 
insects, that it was with the greatest difficulty 
I succeeded in finding any leaves upon them 
sufficiently uninjured to take with me as me- 
morials. A few pebbles, gathered from the soil 
with which the dust of heroes has mingled, fur- 
nished more satisfactory mementos. From this 
mound, erected on the spot where was the 
thickest of the battle, — for the Athenians were 
buried where they fell, — I had an excellent 



MARATHON. 105 

view of the whole plain, and of the scene of the 
fight. A little more than half a mile distant is 
the shore ; here the Persians landed, or a little 
farther to the south, near a marsh which forms 
a natural obstacle to egress from the field in 
that direction, and is covered with luxuriant 
reeds and rushes, and little shrubs. After 
lingering as long as the burning heat of the 
sun would allow, we turned to leave the field by 
another pass, which leads by the little hamlet 
of Vrana. Thus we rode across the site occu- 
pied by the camp of the Greeks, whether, as 
is generally supposed, it was pitched so as to 
cover this pass of Vrana, or whether, as Mr. 
Finlay argues, the line was inclined in another 
direction, so as to cover the pass to Athens 
near the sea. 

In every part of the plain, and almost 
wherever I went in Greece, thistles grow in 
great numbers and variety, red, yellow, purple, 
and whitish-blue. Soon, along the wide, dry 
bed of a little river which flows into the field 
from the pass of Vrana, I found some olean- 
ders with a profusion of gorgeous blossoms, 
and plucked large branches, from which, when 



106 HELLAS. 

I halted for dinner, I selected little buds and 
flowers to press and keep. 

A slight ascent brought us to a khan. A 
woman, with a group of ragged children, who 
lived in the lower rooms, was seated on the 
ground in front ; but she could not give us 
the key to the travellers' room above. How- 
ever, I ate my dinner on the steps, and then 
lay down on the broad upper stones and got 
a little sleep under the shade of its porch. 
Meanwhile my " guide," as he appeased his 
hunger at the foot of the stairs, was recount- 
ing, to the mistress of the house and an old 
man who had come up to see the strangers, 
the story of the glorious battle as he had heard 
it from my lips while we rode over the field 
together. His auditors, living as they did 
almost on the very ground of the battle, were 
as totally ignorant concerning it as he had 
been a few hours before ! 

I could allow little time for rest, and was 
soon ascending the high hill back of Vrana, 
but often stopping for a farewell look at the 
plain of immortal memories, which is nowhere 
seen to greater advantage than from these 



MARATHON. 107 

heights. In addition to its glorious associa- 
tions, Marathon, with its high, embracing 
mountains, and its brilliant, beaming sea, is 
one of the loveliest pictures of natural scenery 
that earth can show. A long, low promon- 
tory, the Cynosura, whose gentle hills con- 
nect themselves with the stately mountains 
guarding the plain on the north, runs out into 
the sea with a most graceful curve, and with a 
beautiful beach, which, like that of the whole 
shore, is covered with sparkling white sand. 
West of this promontory is the marsh in which 
the greatest slaughter of the Persians occurred. 
Across the blue, bright waves, the island of 
Euboea stretches far along in a continuous 
chain of hills and mountains of picturesque 
forms, and varied, ethereal colours. The field, 
in about half its length, lies facing this beau- 
tiful island ; but in the southern part it looks 
out upon the broad open sea. 

On our way homeward, a little before we 
reached Cephissia, we came up with the old 
man who had offered to guide us to the battle- 
field ; he fell to crossing himself as soon as he 
saw us, protesting it was not his fault that he 



108 HELLAS. 

had not satisfied our wishes. I assured him 
I had not thought of letting him go uncom- 
pensated for his trouble, and was only waiting 
to get a piece of money changed at the village 
where I had expected to meet him. So, by 
and by, under that glorious plane-tree, I paid 
the old fellow, who, after all, was no more 
ignorant than some of his neighbours ; and 
after a cup of coffee, and a pleasant chat with 
one of the accomplished Professors of the 
Athenian University, I set off for Athens. 

I had watched the stars fading, one by one, 
in the early morning, as through gates of 
pearl the dawn approached, with her robes 
of saffron and her fingers of rose ; and now 
they were again shining forth in the firma- 
ment, while the shades of night were falling 
around me. The drums were beating the 
nine o'clock tattoo in the Street of JEolus as, 
after a rapid ride, we entered the city, and it 
was twenty hours after we had set out in the 
morning when I dismounted at my hotel. The 
next day, when I rang for breakfast, my land- 
lady asked me whether I would have my soup 
or my coffee. It was nearly three o'clock, and 






MARATHON. 109 

past my usual dinner-hour. When I told my 
friends of my journey, they congratulated me 
on these prolonged slumbers ; for without 
them, after so fatiguing a ride on a day when 
the Sun Demon raged with unusual violence, 
I could hardly have escaped without the terri- 
ble penalty of a Greek fever. 



THE RUINS OF ATHENS. 

" Earth proudly wears the Parthenon, 
As the best gem upon her zone. 

For out of Thought's interior sphere 
These wonders rose to upper air ; 
And Nature gladly gave them place, 
Adopted them into her race, 
And granted them an equal date 
With Andes and with Ararat." 

Emerson. 

If you stand in the Street of iEolus, the 
principal street of modern Athens, you see at 
its southern end the bold crag of the Acropo- 
lis, crowned by the graceful ruins of the 
Erechtheum and the Parthenon. To this, 
the centre of all interest, whether we regard 
the history of Athens, her religion, or her art, 
let us turn our steps. 

At the end of the street, just where the 
slope begins which leads up to the foot of the 
long rocky height, we find an octagonal tower 



THE RUINS OF ATHENS. Ill 

of marble, built about a hundred years before 
our era, — the Horologe of Andronicus Cyr- 
rhestes. It is commonly called the Tower of 
the Winds, its sides facing respectively the 
eight principal points of the compass, which 
are marked by the figures of the winds from 
those points, sculptured on the frieze, and 
represented in rapid flight, — the more rude 
and boisterous as males, the milder as females. 
The figures are still in good preservation, ex- 
cept some mutilation of the faces, (the Turks 
made it a point of religion to disfigure graven 
images, particularly by knocking off the noses), 
and well exhibit the character of the different 
winds. A bronze Triton on the top used to 
serve as a weathercock ; and the time of day 
was indicated by sun-dials on the outside, or, 
in cloudy weather, by a water-clock in the in- 
terior. The Triton is gone, and the clepsydra ; 
but the indexes of the sun-dials have been re- 
cently renewed. On the south side, a few feet 
from the tower, are two massive arches, a part 
of the aqueduct which conducted water to 
the clock. These arches have been recently 
excavated ; and, as the earth has been removed 



112 HELLAS. 

around the tower, the whole building stands 
fifteen or twenty feet below the present surface 
of the neighbouring ground, which has been 
raised by the accumulation of soil and the 
debris of ancient structures. 

If we are impatient to stand before the Par- 
thenon, we ought, starting from this point, to 
wind around the hill to the right ; but we will 
take the path on the left, as we shall thus find 
more objects of interest on our way. The brown 
wall of the Acropolis, rising from the edge of 
the cliff, contains remains of the old Hellenic 
wall, but is made up for the most part of the 
rude constructions of mediaeval and Turkish 
times. Fragments of white marble, the wrecks, 
perhaps, of cunning workmanship, gleam now 
and then from among its irregular stones. In 
the north wall, which we are facing as we stand 
by the horologe, we find occasionally large par- 
allelogram blocks, and some twenty-six drums 
of columns, together with architrave-stones. 
These very interesting relics are probably from 
the original temple on the site of the Par- 
thenon, which was burned by the Persians, — 
its ruins affording ready material for Themis- 



THE RUINS OF ATHENS. 113 

tocles when he hastily rebuilt the walls of the 
citadel. 

Winding around and up the hill, among 
low, wretched hovels, whose rude walls boast 
fragments, now and then, of ancient mar- 
bles, sometimes finely sculptured, we soon 
stand on the site of the Street of the Tripods. 
This street was lined by the little monuments 
or chapels erected by the leaders in the dra- 
matic choruses, to receive and display the 
bronze tripods given as prizes for the success 
of the choruses whose expenses they had 
defrayed. The tripods were consecrated to 
Dionysus, the god in whose honour the dra- 
matic festivals were held. Of these struc- 
tures one lovely example remains, — the 
Choregic Monument of Lysicrates, erected 
B. C. 335. It is a little circular structure, 
thirty-five feet in height, with six Corinthian 
columns ; and its roof is crested by an ex- 
quisitely beautiful finial (designed as a ped- 
estal for the tripod), which swells upwards 
in graceful shape, and curves with plume- 
like drooping at the three corners of its tri- 
angular summit. The spirited frieze repre- 
8 



114 HELLAS. 

sents Dionysus and his attendant satyrs turn- 
ing the Tyrrhenian pirates into dolphins. The 
metamorphosis in some places is but half com- 
pleted, so that human legs are striking out 
from dolphins' bodies. These sculptures, as 
well as the columns and the finial, are con- 
siderably mutilated ; but for all that the mon- 
ument is still a little gem. 

We are now turning the southeast corner 
of the citadel, and as soon as we have fairly 
reached the southern side, we are on the site 
of the renowned Theatre of Dionysus. The 
outlines of the theatre and a few of its rows 
of seats are all that can now be traced ; yet 
what delight in standing on the very spot 
which witnessed the triumphs of iEschylus, 
Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes ! A 
little grotto in the rock, just above the the- 
atre, was formerly adorned with statues, _and 
is still surmounted by two columns of un- 
equal height, reared to support consecrated 
tripods which had been obtained as choregic 
prizes. Passing on through the ruins of some 
arches, of uncertain history, we come to the 
extensive remains of the Odeum, or Music 



THE EUINS OF ATHENS. 115 

Theatre, built by the munificent Herodes At- 
ticus in the time of Marcus Aurelius. They 
are in the Roman style, and have no beauty 
to detain us long. 

We are at the southwest corner of the 
Acropolis, and near the entrance to the cit- 
adel. Imagine a rocky height, rising pre- 
cipitously* from the plain, so as to be in- 
accessible on all sides but the west, where 
it is approached by a gentle slope ; give it 
an elevation of three hundred and fifty feet 
above the vale of Athens, and five hundred 
and sixty-nine above the sea, a length of 
about nine hundred and fifty feet from east 
to west, and a breadth of four hundred and 
thirty from north to south. This is the 
Acropolis. Its summit was levelled, proba- 
bly by the early Pelasgian inhabitants, who 
made their abode upon this rock. The site 
of the first settlement, the fortress of the 
city, the oldest and most sacred seat of the 
gods, the consecrated pedestal which upbore 

* The sides of the rock originally rose almost perpendic- 
ularly; but the debris of ancient ruins, thrown clown from 
above, decreases at present their apparent height. 



116 HELLAS. 

the most glorious works of Athenian art, in 
architecture, sculpture, and painting : — enter 
with reverence, for thou art ascending to the 
Athens of Athens, the Greece of Greece ! 

Unsightly mediaeval and Turkish walls are 
drawn to shelter the western approach. Re- 
moving their rude stones, a few months before 
my visit, a French gentleman disclosed a Doric 
gateway, facing the Propylaea, and very likely 
the ancient entrance. But, as this gateway is 
blocked up, the only admission within the cit- 
adel is by a little door at the southwest corner. 
We enter a yard, where, in the marble frag- 
ments of old edifices and statues piled around 
in rich profusion, we have a foretaste of the 
scene of costly ruin which the whole hill pre- 
sents. A soldier comes forward to take the 
card of admission which we have obtained, 
by paying a small fee, from M. Pittakys, the 
Inspector of Antiquities ; another soldier ac- 
companies us over the citadel, to see that we 
remove no fragment of ancient workmanship. 
A slight turn, and at our right, crowning a 
high, tower-like projection of the Cimonian 
wall, rises a very small, but exquisitely beau- 



THE RUINS OF ATHENS. 117 

tiful temple, that of the Wingless Victory,* — 
Victory who would never desert that people in 
whose fortress and among whose gods she had 
taken up her abode. Four graceful Ionic col- 
umns on each front sustain the pediment, and 
a highly ornamented frieze, portions of which 
remain, surrounded the building. A balustrade 
of marble slabs, adorned with exquisite reliefs, 
rail along the northern edge of the wall on 
which the temple stands, to guard the narrow 
passage-way ; some of these slabs are now 
preserved in the interior of the building, one 
of which, representing Victory unloosing her 
sandals, is of singular beauty, spirit, and grace. 
The recent history of the temple is interesting. 
It was seen in 1676 by the travellers Spon and 
Wheler ; but a century ago it had entirely 
disappeared. In 1835, however, in some ex- 
cavations among the ruins of a Turkish bas- 
tion, carried on by the German archaeologist, 
Ross, its fragments were discovered, and, with 
great skill restored to their original position. 

# This temple of N1K77 aTrrcpos " is only twenty-seven feet 
long, eighteen feet broad, and, from the lowest step to the top 
of the pediment, not more than twenty- three feet high." 



118 HELLAS. 

To gain the temple of Victory, we ascended 
the noble flight of steps which led up from 
the Agora to the Propylaea. It was paved 
in the middle with slabs furrowed crosswise 
for the horsemen, and furnished at the sides 
with steps of marble, of which only broken 
and interrupted fragments remain. We are 
facing the ruins of that noble gateway — the 
Propytea — which Pericles built, B. C. 437- 
432, with a magnificence worthy of the ar- 
chitectural glories to which it is the prelude. 
Let us before our mind's eye restore the 
structure in its original perfection. It was 
the problem of the architect to combine a 
cheerful " overture " to the Parthenon and 
other temples of the Acropolis, with the 
strength of the entrance to a fortress ; and 
in this he happily succeeded. A broad por- 
tico of six Doric columns in the centre, with 
a wider interval between the two middle 
columns than the rest, invites us to enter ; 
on either flank boldly project two marble 
halls or chambers, (the northern a picture- 
gallery, the southern an arsenal,) entered 
each through a portico of three columns on 



THE RUINS OF ATHENS. 119 

the side adjacent to the central structure, but 
presenting a line of strong and solid wall on 
their western faces, towards the approaching 
visitor ; while the military character of the 
edifice was still further indicated by the pro- 
jection of the Cimonian wall, (crowned by the 
little temple of the Wingless Victory,) which 
forms a solid tower directly in front of the 
arsenal, and stands on the right of the flight 
of steps, according to the law in Greek for- 
tification, so as to take an approaching enemy 
on the side unprotected by his shield. On 
reaching the portico, you find that it intro- 
duces you to a hall, covered with a marble 
roof, which has a depth of forty-three feet, 
and is terminated by a solid marble wall, 
pierced with five gateways diminishing in 
height from the central and wider to the two 
outmost. The middle and wider passage-way 
within this hall is flanked by three Ionic 
columns on each side. The happy inter- 
change of the Doric and Ionic orders, the 
graceful proportions of the whole structure, 
the exquisite carvings and brilliant colours of 
the roof, the wealth of statues, bronzes, and 



120 HELLAS. 

votive offerings with which the hall was 
adorned, combined to render the Propylaea 
one of the most glorious creations even of 
the age of Pericles, and the envy of Greece. 
Nor could the spirit of the Athenians be better 
symbolized, or the double purpose of the 
structure itself better indicated, than by the 
dedication of the two apartments on either 
side of the central portico to Art and to Arms, 
— the Pinacotheca, on the north, being filled 
with master-pieces of the first painters of the 
age, and the southern chamber being occu- 
pied as an arsenal. The doors with which 
the five gateways were closed were of wood, 
but elaborately carved and heavily gilded. 
Passing through them, the visitor found him- 
self in another portico, of little depth, formed 
by six Doric columns precisely corresponding 
with those of the western front, through which 
he saw the statue of Athena Promachos, the 
peerless Parthenon, and the other wonders of 
the storied hill.* 

* The central part of the Propylaea is most simply de- 
scribed as a wall, pierced with five gates, and enclosed within 
a double portico. It was fifty-eight feet in breadth ; the 



THE RUINS OF ATHENS. 121 

But of this magnificent structure the mod- 
ern traveller finds only a shattered wreck. 
It is well that he should be prepared at once 
for the desolation and ruin which mar the 
reliques of the Parthenon, that his eye, re- 
covered from the first shock of disappointment 
and sorrow, may dwell the more lovingly upon 
the inimitable grace and beauty which assert 
their immortality in the midst of all this de- 
cay. In place of the arsenal, now rises a tall, 
unsightly tower, built by a Frankish duke in 
the fifteenth century. The roofs and pedi- 
ments of the central structure and of the 
Pinacotheca have vanished ; while most of 
the columns of the western portico, and all 
the Ionic columns of the pillared corridor 
behind them, have lost their capitals, and re- 
main but in about three fourths of their origi- 



western portico forty-three feet in depth, the eastern some 
twenty feet. The Doric columns were four and a half feet 
in diameter and nearly twenty-nine feet in height. The two 
wings projected twenty-six feet in front of the central struc- 
ture ; the picture-gallery, entered through a porch twelve feet 
in depth, was itself thirty-five feet by thirty, the arsenal 
twenty-six by seventeen. 



122 HELLAS. 

nal height.* Yet still are these rich marble 
walls and swelling columns irresistibly win- 
ning, still do they extort a tribute of admira- 
tion from the pilgrim who is hastening beyond. 
On every side, in the Pinacotheca and cen- 
tral hall of the Propylasa, we have seen piled 
fragments of ancient statues, friezes, soffits, 
and other architectural ornaments, and sim- 
ilar heaps of shattered splendour meet us on 
our way to the Parthenon. That loveliest of 

=* Of the Pinacotheca the walls are nearly perfect, and the 
three Doric columns entire. The two columns at either end 
of the western portico are well preserved, but the four others 
mutilated as I have described ; the eastern portico retains its 
six columns in tolerable preservation, although the blocks of 
which they are composed are considerably mutilated, and the 
capital of one of them lies broken at its feet. 

I was interested in the proof of the unfinished state in which 
the Propylaaa was left (the disastrous Peloponnesian war 
breaking out before it was entirely completed) furnished 
by the bosses or projections from the centre of the marble 
blocks in a part of the inner wall. Those which I first saw 
were so regular, that I thought they might have been intended 
as ornaments, to relieve the blankness of the wall ; but a 
little further examination showed that this explanation is in- 
admissible, and that they were left to facilitate the raising of 
the blocks, with the intention of removing them and smooth- 
ing the stones after the walls had been erected. 



THE RUINS OF ATHENS. 123 

temples stood on the highest part of the hill, 

— on ground forty feet higher than the Pro- 
pylaea, — and not directly in front of this gate- 
way, but at a considerable angle to the right, 
as the Greeks liked to approach their temples. 
Its western facade rises boldly before us, nor 
shall we soon have eyes for anything else. 

Yet in the days of Athenian glory this 
peerless edifice was but one — though indeed 
the noblest — in the multitude of stately 
structures borne by the sacred hill. Shrines, 
temples, and statues of gods, heroes, and il- 
lustrious men, were crowded together on the 
hallowed ground. One of the foremost and 
most impressive inhabitants of this chosen 
home of religion and art was Athena Pro- 
machos, — Athena the Champion of the City, 

— whose colossal statue of bronze, wrought 
by the cunning hand of Phidias, bearing lance 
and shield, and clad with aegis and helmet, 
rose to the height of upwards of seventy feet, 
keeping watch and ward over the sanctuaries 
and the fortress of her favourite city. Her 
gilded spear-point, glittering above the roofs 
of the Parthenon, was visible off the Cape of 



124 HELLAS. 

Sunium to the mariner approaching Athens. 
Pagan superstition believed the legend that 
Alaric, when at the end of the fourth century 
he came to Athens bent upon conquest and 
pillage, was stricken with superstitious terrour 
as he beheld the stately image of the warlike 
goddess towering above the citadel, and with- 
drew without molesting the people she guarded. 
The path to the Parthenon led to the east, 
passing along the northern side of the build- 
ing, and between it and the statue of Athena 
Promachos. The entrance to the Greek tem- 
ples was almost always on the east. It was 
not the object of these edifices to accommo- 
date a throng of worshippers ; but they were 
built as houses for the gods, not for men, — 
as shrines in which the sacred image should 
dwell securely, and which should be of a 
magnificence and beauty worthy of their in- 
dweller. They were elevated upon platforips 
above the surrounding ground, so as to stand 
out from all profane structures as something 
apart ; and the peristyle was raised three 
steps above these platforms, that he who en- 
tered might come with the good omen of 



THE RUINS OF ATHENS. 125 

having struck both the first and the last step 
with his right foot. The statue of the god 
was placed in the cella, or chief apartment 
of the temple, which, in accordance with 
its design of sheltering the image and sep- 
arating it from everything profane, was en- 
closed by solid walls ; but not on the east, — 
for here, in front of the temple, stood the altar 
of burnt offerings, and the suppliant would 
fain offer his sacrifice in sight of the god. 
Accordingly, on this side a wide doorway was 
left open, behind the vestibule, which was 
formed by a row of columns standing opposite 
to those of the exterior portico, and met at 
each end by an extension of the side walls of 
the cella. 

The Parthenon, as the name implies, was 
the "House of the Virgin," — the fane of 
the maiden goddess Athena. Its solid walls 
of Pentelic marble were surrounded by an 
ambulatory of forty-six Doric columns, eight 
on each end and seventeen on each side 
(counting the two exterior columns twice). 
After ascending the three steps which con- 
duct the visitor to the floor of the eastern 



126 HELLAS. 

portico, he mounts two more steps to enter 
the vestibule or pronabs. Six Doric columns 
mark the outer limit of this vestibule, and 
the interstices between them were filled by 
a gilded grating. Within the pronaos stood 
the golden basin of water for purification, 
while votive gifts of various kinds were sus- 
pended on the walls or borne by tripods and 
tables. The wall itself was painted. 

The cella proper, entered from this porch, 
contained the magnificent statue of Athena, 
by Phidias, made of ivory and gold. The 
apartment itself was nearly a hundred feet 
long, and above sixty feet in width. Two 
ranges of pillars, one above the other, sup- 
ported the roof, — for the temple was hy- 
psethral (that is to say, lighted from above), 
and the aperture to admit the light made 
such support necessary. The aperture had 
a movable covering of bronze, and was open 
only on days of festival ; at such times, from 
the clear blue heavens, the light fell in the 
most advantageous way upon the colossal 
statue, which stood below, upon a platform 
of Piraean tufa, not immediately beneath, 



THE RUINS OF ATHENS. 127 

but a little beyond the opening in the roof. 
" This plastic hymn, celebrating the might 
and greatness of the goddess," is thus de- 
scribed by Hettner : " A long garment falls 
in massive and graceful folds to her feet, 
and is enriched at the breast with an ivory 
mask of Medusa ; the head is covered by a 
helmet, on the top of which rests a sphinx, 
and on each side a griffin, carved in relief. 
In her left hand she bears a spear, round 
which twines the sacred snake of the cita- 
del ; in her right, Nike, the golden goddess 
of victory ; at her feet leans her shield. On 
the base of the statue is represented the 
birth of Pandora ; along the edge of her san- 
dals, the victory over the Centaurs ; and on 
her shield, her other conquests, — outside, the 
battle with the Amazons, — inside, the conflict 
with the giants." * In the inner chamber, 
formed by the pillars surrounding the statue, 
which were connected with each other, per- 
haps, by gratings, — the Parthenon proper, 
in the stricter sense, — were placed the no- 

* The statue was thirty-nine feet seven inches in height, 
the figure of Victory six feet high. 



128 HELLAS. 

blest and most beautiful gifts presented to 
the shrine. 

Behind the cella was another apartment, 
separated from it by a solid wall, and en- 
tered only from the west, — the Opisthodomus. 
This was the Treasury of the temple and of 
the state. Its walls were painted by Poly- 
gnotus. Four pillars supported the ceiling, 
" which, as in other temples, was painted with 
golden stars on a blue ground, in imitation 
of the open sky." It was entered through 
a pronaos or- porch, precisely corresponding, 
with that of the eastern end. 

More wondrous even than the exquisite 
proportions of the building itself, and the 
effect of majesty and grace which it pro- 
duced, were the sculptures with which its 
exterior was profusely adorned. The muti- 
lated statue of Theseus (as it is called in 
England, many German scholars dissenting), 
from the pediment of the Parthenon, is just- 
ly regarded as the finest statue in the world ; 
and, altogether, in pediments, metopes, and 
frieze, the Fane of the Virgin was decked 
with the very highest and noblest works in 



THE RUINS OF ATHENS. 129 

sculpture to which human genius ever gave 
birth. The figures of the pedimental sculp- 
tures — not less than twenty to twenty-five 
in number in each pediment — were full and 
complete, detached from the wall, and, like 
all the works of Phidias, finished ad unguem, 
even in the parts entirely removed from the 
sight of the visitor : 

"For the gods see every where." 

Those of the eastern front represented the 
birth of Athena, and her reception in the 
assembly of the gods ; the western, the vic- 
tory of the goddess in her contest with Po- 
seidon for the land of Attica. The sculp- 
tured metopes — ninety-two in all — filled 
the intervals between the triglyphs in the 
frieze of the peristyle. They represented, in 
very bold relief (parts of the figures being 
quite detached from the tablets), various in- 
cidents in the life of Athena, exploits of her 
favorite heroes, and combats with centaurs. 
And the entire wall of the cella, within the 
peristyle, was surrounded by a sculptured 
frieze, in a continuous line of bas-reliefs five 
hundred and twenty-four feet in length, rep- 
9 



130 HELLAS. 

resenting the joyous procession of the great 
Panathenaic festival, which carried the peplos, 
or sacred veil, wrought annually by the maid- 
ens of Athens, and other gifts for the god- 
dess, to her sanctuary. This frieze is as ad- 
mirable in its way as the pedimental sculp- 
tures in theirs, — the highest achievement of 
art in this kind. The life, the grace, the 
variety of the figures, — the perfect represen- 
tation, in their different characters, of grave 
old men, spirited youth, and winning maidens, 
— the horses, which, as Flaxman says (in 
words often quoted, because so true), " ap- 
pear to live and move, to roll their eyes, to 
gallop, prance, and curvet," — command the 
admiration of the world. How easily and 
gracefully sit those horsemen, — what life and 
reality in every group ! I once visited the 
imperial stud at Tarbes, in France, when a 
party of soldiers were riding some twenty or 
thirty noble animals of the purest Arabian 
and English blood, for exercise, in the field. 
The horses were full of fire, and life, and 
frolic ; I exclaimed at once, tt It is the frieze 
of the Parthenon realized ! " and I felt, as I 



THE RUINS OF ATHENS. 131 

had never felt before, the full power and 
genius of those old Greek sculptors. 

Such were the adornments of the Virgin's 
Fane, — so lovely, that, when we contemplate 
them alone, the whole edifice, so exquisitely 
symmetrical, seems but the pedestal which 
supported those wondrous sculptures, — the 
casket which enshrined that matchless statue. 
But in the construction of the temple itself 
there are hidden refinements and delicacies 
which testify no less strikingly to the genius 
of the builders. Its architects had caught 
from Nature her cunning secret of avoiding 
straight lines by delicate curves. Thus every 
apparently horizontal line in the building — 
as in the upper surfaces of the steps, the en- 
tablature, etc. — rises at the centre in an 
almost imperceptible curve from either end ; 
the columns, as they gently taper upwards, 
swell with a hyperbolic entasis ; while verti- 
cal lines are equally avoided, the columns 
inclining slightly towards the centre of the 
building, and the walls themselves inclining 
inwards, so that every apparently vertical 
line produced would meet in one point, — 



132 HELLAS. 

of course at an immense distance above the 
building. The curves are conic sections, 
wrought out with extreme accuracy and 
subtilty of reference to the optical effect. I 
doubt not that the exquisite eye of the 
Greeks, so sensitive to beauty, first taught 
them to employ these delicate curves ; and 
that they afterwards applied their admirable 
mathematical science to the development of 
the laws by which their use should be gov- 
erned. While beauty and grace are height- 
ened by these nice deviations from rectilin- 
eal structure, the effect of the absence of 
perpendicularity, or the slight approach to 
the pyramidal form, is strength and repose. 

It is true that one object of the curves is to 
correct the optical illusion by which a hori- 
zontal line perfectly straight appears to sag, 
and a column tapering regularly to be de- 
pressed in the middle ; as intelligent builders 
raise the king-post an inch or two higher than 
the other supports of a roof, knowing that the 
ridge must be slightly elevated in the centre 
to appear horizontal. But the swell in the 
lines of the Parthenon is more than correc- 



THE RUINS OF ATHENS. 133 

tive ; though almost imperceptible, it is just 
sufficient to add a mysterious grace and soft- 
ness to the contour, and constitute one of 
those peculiar charms, always felt though till 
lately inexplicable, the absence of which in all 
the modern imitations of classical architecture 
makes them comparatively so cold and harsh. 
I could distinctly trace the swell in the col- 
umns, and thought I could perceive the curves 
in other lines of the temple ; and yet they are 
so delicate that no one would detect them, 
were he not previously aware of their exist- 
ence ; and, although they were noticed by 
Vitruvius, the modern world has been strange- 
ly ignorant in the matter, until the recent 
investigations of Pennethorne and Penrose.* 

Moreover, to all the perfect graces of form 
there were added here the richest enchant- 
ments of colour. For that in the Parthenon, 

* In a visit to the Acropolis, one evening, I satisfied some 
sceptical companions of the existence of this curve on the 
upper step of the Parthenon, by getting one of them to hold a 
lighted match at one end while his friend at the other end 
looked along the surface of the step. It was not until the 
match had been raised some six inches above the marble that 
it became visible from the other end. 



134 HELLAS. 

as in ancient temples generally, the architec- 
tural effect was heightened by painting, there 
is no longer room for doubt. The wall of the 
tympanum was coloured, to bring out the 
pedimental statues in bolder relief. There 
are indications that the cornice was decorated 
with u painted ovoli and arrows, coloured 
meanders, and honeysuckle ornaments," and 
that gilded festoons hung on the architraves, 
below the triglyphs, which, as well as the 
guttae, were painted azure. The ceilings 
were painted in blue and gold ; and, besides 
these colours, ochre and vermilion were used 
in the decorations. The drapery of the 
figures on the frieze was marked with colour 
and gilding, but the human form stood out 
in the white purity of marble. And that the 
shafts of the pillars, and the walls of the 
temple, were not coloured, is the best estab- 
lished opinion. To add pigments to the broad 
masses of that rich Pentelic marble would be 
indeed " to paint the lily;" although the 
walls of temples of inferior stone, covered 
with stucco, needed and received such em- 
bellishment. It is still maintained by some, 



THE RUINS OF ATHENS. 135 

however, that the whole surface was stained 
with ochre or other pigment ; for what pur- 
pose I know not, unless to soften the dazzling 
brilliancy of the marble. The question is one 
of fact, as well as of a priori probability ; and 
we find, that, while the traces of colouring in 
the parts already alluded to have been so 
clearly ascertained as to be admitted on all 
hands, no colour has been detected on the 
outer cella-walls and pillar-shafts of the mar- 
ble temples of Athens, except such as receives 
its most natural explanation in the effect of 
oxidation, and the growth of mosses or other 
vegetable matter. But to whatever extent the 
painting of the temple was carried, it must 
have been controlled by the same exquisite 
taste as was displayed in every other feature 
of the building. 

Less than two hundred years ago this won- 
drous structure survived, almost uninjured by 
time. The chryselephantine statue of Athena 
had been carried to Constantinople ; her shrine 
had been converted, successively, into a Chris- 
tian church — first of the "Divine Wisdom," 
or the Word, afterwards of the Virgin Mary — 



136 HELLAS. 

and a Mohammedan mosque. Yet were the 
walls unbroken, the splendours of pediments, 
frieze, and metopes little impaired. The bom- 
bardment of the Acropolis by the Venetians 
in 1687 dashed the middle of the Parthenon to 
pieces ; Morosini, the Venetian commander, 
broke some of the noblest statues of the ped- 
iment to atoms in an unskilful attempt to 
remove them ; and in more recent times the 
work of spoliation was continued by Lord 
Elgin. And now at first sight the visitor is 
oppressed by the mournful aspect of ruin, — 
at least if, as in my case, he has received 
from drawings the impression of less muti- 
lation than exists in fact. The roof is gone, 
and the whole centre of the building thrown 
down ; fourteen columns of the peristyle, on 
the north and south, and five of the eastern 
vestibule, have been prostrated, and all the 
columns and division-walls of the interior 
apartments destroyed. But the majesty, and 
grace, and beauty, which, after all the havoc, 
still speak in these stones, throw an irresistible 
spell around you, and you hardly miss what 
is absent, just as you never feel the want of 



THE RUINS OF ATHENS. 137 

the arms when you look at that victorious 
Venus, who once looked down in proud 
beauty upon the thronged theatre of Melos, 
and still conquers all hearts as of yore. 

There was no barbaric splendour about the 
architectural wonders of Athens ; it was not 
to stupendous size, or profusion of costly or- 
nament, that they owed their effect ; in all 
things, the Athenians knew how to unite 
beauty with simplicity.* The Parthenon is 
of moderate dimensions, — two hundred and 
twenty-eight feet in length, one hundred and 
one in breadth, and sixty-six in height to the 
top of the pediments (omitting fractions) ; f 
and yet, both at my first and every subse- 
quent visit, I wsfs struck with its majesty, as 
well as its* grace. But its great charm is the 
perfect harmony which breathes in it, — the 
cheerfulness, the serenity, which reign in its 

* ^i\oKa\ovfX€v yap per cvrekeias. — Funeral Oration of 
Pericles, Thucyd. IT. 40. 

t In mere size the Parthenon is far surpassed by Girard Col- 
lege,— one of the noblest modern buildings in the Grecian style. 
The latter has a length of two hundred and eighteen feet, a 
breadth of one hundred and sixty, and a height of ninety-seven 
feet. 



138 HELLAS. 

lovely proportions. It dwells in immortal 
calm, enthroned in that pure and serene 
beauty which is the type of the highest ex- 
cellence in human character, — the complete 
symmetry of mind and heart and will, under 
the supreme control of true religion. I do 
not mean that this symbolic significance is 
due to any conscious purpose of the architects, 
any more than I believe that the builders of 
Gothic cathedrals intended to symbolize the 
mystery and aspiration of Christian faith. 
" They builded better than they knew ; " 
and one of the noblest vindications of art lies 
in the fact that there are meanings and re- 
lations in all beauty, which correspond to 
every truth. 

The world is apt to regard with some sus- 
picion rhapsodies over the great works of 
classical art and literature. But although 
it be true that among the admirers of an- 
tiquity, as in every other class of persons, you 
may find some extravagant enthusiasts, all 
men of catholic taste and cultivation, of 
whatever school, unite in paying homage to 
the architects and sculptors of Athens. Geni- 



THE EUINS OF ATHENS. 139 

us is not confined to one race or one epoch. 
The memory of the Parthenon but heightened 
the admiration and reverence with which I 
floated along the watery streets of Venice, 
or stood beneath the dome of St. Peter's ; 
paced the grand nave of Milan, or climbed 
the towers and galleries of Amiens, Rouen, 
Strasburg, and Cologne. New times and new 
institutions must give rise to new styles of 
architecture, fitted to their peculiar demands. 
It would be absurd to take an idol-house of 
the Greeks as the model for the place of wor- 
ship of a Christian congregation. True taste 
is bound in the trammels of no narrow par- 
tisanship ; heirs as we are of all the ages, 
let us admire and be grateful for our richly 
varied inheritance in the monuments of clas- 
sic, mediaeval, and modern times. But in 
complete grace and symmetry and harmony, 
in wondrous delicacy and learned refinement 
of construction, in the association of the high- 
est achievements of sculpture, what build- 
ing in the world is the peer of the Parthe- 
non ? 

As you admire an exquisite ode of Simoni- 



140 HELLAS. 

des, though fresh from the stately epic of 
Homer, even so when you turn from the 
splendours of the Virgin's Fane does the 
graceful ruin of the Erechtheum delight you. 
Without the majesty of its stately neighbour, 
it breathes an exquisite grace and a winning 
loveliness unrivalled. Nowhere else has Greek 
architecture so well displayed its powers of 
adaptation. Here were a number of sacred 
objects, irregularly placed, which were to be 
comprehended within one structure, properly 
distributed, at the same time, in their appro- 
priate apartments : the olive-tree which sprang 
up at Athena's bidding, — the salt spring 
which burst forth at the touch of Poseidon's 
trident, — the ancient altars of various gods 
and national heroes, — the graves of Cecrops, 
Erechtheus, and Butes, — the lair of the sa- 
cred serpent, — the sanctuary of Pandrosus, — 
and above all the fane of Athena Polias, whose 
statue of olive-wood, the most venerable ob- 
ject of worship in Athens, was reputed to 
have fallen from heaven. To her was allot- 
ted the largest section of the temple, entered 
from the eastern portico ; while behind it was 



THE RUINS OF ATHENS. 141 

the Pandroseum, with its portico on the north. 
These two cellae filled the main body of the 
building, which is thirty-seven feet in breadth 
and seventy-three feet in length. Before the 
statue of Athena burned a golden lamp, both 
night and day, furnished with a wick of as- 
bestos, and fed with oil once a year ; a bra- 
zen palm-tree, rising above it to the roof, 
carried off the smoke. Persian spoils, — as 
the silver-footed throne on which Xerxes sat, 
upon 

t( the rocky brow 
Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis," 

and the sword of Mardonius, taken at Plataea, 
— a folding-chair made by Daedalus, — and a 
wooden Hermes said to have been presented 
by Cecrops, — were among the objects whose 
presence filled the shrine with interesting as- 
sociations. 

The six Ionic columns of the northern por- 
tico, and five of the six of the eastern, are 
still standing. The northern is the larger and 
the nobler ; it stands on ground eight feet 
lower than the other, — hence its columns are 
higher. The intercolumnar distances, also, 



142 HELLAS. 

here are greater ; * and the whole portico has 
a lightness and gracefulness which make it 
the most charming example of the Ionic order 
in the world. The neck of the shafts, below 
the capitals, is exquisitely adorned with flow- 
ers and leafage, — a prophecy of the Corin- 
thian capital, to which the Ionic subsequently 
gave birth. All the mouldings and orna- 
ments of the entablature, and the arabesques 
of the doorways, are singularly lovely and 
elegant. 

At the western end, the wall rose unbroken 
to about half the height of the building, 
where it is surmounted by four Ionic pillars, 
whose interspaces were either left open, or 
closed with some transparent material. The 
effect of these novel windows is very beauti- 
ful ; and the significance of the construction 
lies herein, that the eastern portico would 

* The height of the pillars in the eastern portico is eight 
and three fifths diameters ; in the northern, nine and a half j — 
the distance of the pillars from each other is two diameters 
in the former, three in the latter ; — the height of the entab- 
lature on the eastern portico, two and one ninth diameters ; 
on the northern, only two. 



THE RUINS OF ATHENS. 143 

lead you to expect a corresponding portico 
at the western end, while from the fact that 
the Pandroseum occupies, transversely, the 
western part of the building, such a portico, 
projecting from its side wall, would be an 
architectural absurdity. The present arrange- 
ment reconciles conflicting demands, by its 
felicitous intermingling of wall and pillars. 

But the most unique feature of the Erech- 
theum is the southern portico. Six Athenian 
maidens, carved in marble, of colossal size, 
upbear the entablature, — I do not say the 
roof, for the portico (or, rather, sacred en- 
closure) stood open to the sky. They are 
clad in the robes worn by the virgins in the 
Panathenaic procession. Of grand and noble 
forms, serene and stately, firmly, but with- 
out effort, they bear the load imposed, while 
in their whole attitude, and in every feature of 
their lovely faces, reign a grace and a sweet- 
ness ineffably winning. There was probably 
some special propriety, resulting from the re- 
ligious associations of the place, which justified 
the architect in his bold, but most successful, 
use of the human form as an architectural 



144 HELLAS. 

member. How different the effortless ease of 
these noble maidens from the contortions and 
agonies of the monstrous Caryatides and At- 
lantes of the Eenaissance ! One of these 
statue-pillars was carried to London by Lord 
Elgin ; its place has been recently supplied 
by a wooden effigy, and the entablature re- 
placed. Within this roofless enclosure, it is 
supposed, grew the sacred olive-tree. 

The frieze of the Erechtheum was adorned 
with exquisite sculptures representing some 
festive procession ; but of them we have but 
few and mutilated remains. The name of 
" the house of Erechtheus " was given to 
this assemblage of shrines from the mythic 
builder of the old temple, which occupied the 
same site, and was (itself or its successor) 
burned by Xerxes. The present structure 
was built a little after the Parthenon and 
Propylaea, — begun, perhaps, under Pericles, 
but not completed till about the year 393 
B. C. Time has shattered and defaced the 
lovely temple ; the Moslem lords of Athens 
converted it into a harem ; but the charm of 
its original loveliness could not be wholly 



THE EUINS OF ATHENS. 145 

destroyed, and the world can hardly show a 
structure more captivating in its beautiful 
harmony. 

We must not forget the great distinction 
between the Erechtheum and the Parthenon, 
which Boetticher and Curtius have recently 
pointed out, that, while the former was a tem- 
ple for worship, — the most holy sanctuary of 
the city, with its priests, its sacrifices, and its 
perpetual flame, — the latter, built in honour 
of the goddess rather than for her immediate 
service, had a political as well as a religious 
significance, and symbolized the glory at once 
of Athens and of Athena. In form, it is true, 
the Parthenon was a temple ; and its chrys- 
elephantine statue, though not directly an ob- 
ject of worship, was the most impressive rev- 
elation of the divine attributes of the goddess, 
the most glorious offering consecrated in her 
name. While the ancient, misshapen idol of 
Athena Polias, said to have fallen from heaven, 
was venerated with profound and superstitious 
awe, the magnificent image wrought by Phidias 
received a more intellectual homage. Worthily 
did she preside over the select assemblage col- 
10 



146 HELLAS. 

lected within the Parthenon, when the judges, 
sitting at her feet, bestowed the prizes upon 
the victors in the great Panathenaic festival ; 
but this was probably the only occasion when 
her sanctuary was employed for a public pur- 
pose.* As for the Opisthodomus, the purpose 
for which it was occupied was directly secular ; 
yet it was quite in character with the religious 
spirit of the Athenians to invoke the protec- 



* Curtius — whose learning and fine aesthetic sense have 
done so much to illustrate the monuments of Athens — has 
noticed the concentration in the Parthenon of symbols of that 
emulation " which was the soul of the Periclean state." M Here 
belong," he says, " not only the image of Nike, which sprang 
from the hand of the Parthenos to meet the victors, but also 
the prize-vases on the top of the temple and the shields on its 
architrave. The pediments represented Athena herself as the 
resplendent and victorious goddess in heaven and upon the 
earth ; in the metopes the heroes are presented in victorious 
combats, in the frieze the Athenians, as the foremost of the 
Greeks." — Gr. Gesch., II. 275. 

I have already called attention (North American Review, 
Oct., 1858, Article VIII.) to the admirable work from which I 
make this quotation. The second volume, recently published, 
amply fulfils the promise of the first. No author is more hap- 
py than Curtius in reproducing in all its freshness the very 
life of ancient times. 



THE RUINS OP ATHENS. 147 

tion of their tutelar deity for the treasures of 
the state. 

Among the various fragments of ancient 
edifices which strew the Athenian hill of the 
gods, you find in front of the eastern portico 
of the Parthenon, where excavations have been 
recently made, drums of columns in various 
stages of preparation, and the remains of a 
small circular temple, with the inscription on 
its entablature, " To Rome and Augustus." 
A rude hut near by contains a collection of 
ancient lamps, vases, pottery, and fragments 
of sculpture. Even the struggles of Turk and 
Greek have left their memorials in bones and 
skulls, with which a deep pit is filled. But 
your attention is most worthily attracted by 
the exquisite slabs from the frieze of the Par- 
thenon which lie against the wall, on the pave- 
ment of the temple itself, or among the piles 
of fragments against the Propylaea. Beauti- 
fully unstained and white, and surviving in 
almost the full glory of their original perfec- 
tion, there is something exceedingly touching 
in them as they lie carelessly in those piles of 
ruin. Nor will you disdain to pause for a 



148 HELLAS. 

moment and admire the loyalty of an owl, 
whose rude and quaint, but grave and im- 
pressive image, is perched among these relics, 
still faithful amidst the desolation of his mis- 
tress's fane. 

Nature asserts her charms, on this the very 
throne of Art. How often did I turn from 
living frieze and swelling column, to gaze en- 
tranced upon broad plain, and calm, majestic 
mountain, and sparkling, blue, blue sea ! 

But, however reluctant, we must leave this 
consecrated rock, for Athens has much else to 
show. Glancing, as we descend, at the high 
pedestal which stands in front of the Pina- 
cotheca, and formerly sustained a statue of 
Agrippa, we will mount that craggy height 
directly opposite the western end of the Acro- 
polis, and distant from it but two hundred 
yards, — the hill of Mars, — haunted not only 
by the associations of the most venerable tri- 
bunal of Athens, but by those, more impressive 
still, of the sublimest scene which even this 
city ever witnessed, — one of the sublimest 
scenes in the history of our race, — the con- 
fronting of the simple truths of the Gospel of 



THE RUINS OP ATHENS. 149 

Christ with the pomp and pride of Grecian 
philosophy and religion, when Stoic and Epi- 
curean gathered around to hear the strange 
teachings of the Apostle to the Gentiles. Un- 
dazzled by the beauty of shrine and statue, 
" his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw 
the city wholly given to idolatry " ; he knew 
how much corruption was mingled with these 
rites ; he knew that this religion, however 
much it ministered to the taste, was unable to 
cleanse the heart and the affections, and satisfy 
the deepest wants of the soul ; he knew, too, 
that though God had overlooked " the times 
of this ignorance," He had been pleased, " by 
that Man whom He had ordained," to reveal 
the full knowledge of Himself, and proclaim 
that catholic faith which was to be embraced 
by every nation, tongue, and people, — a faith 
loftier than the most spiritual dreams of Plato, 
wider than the broadest generalizations of 
Aristotle, — bringing with it a happiness and 
internal peace unimagined by the Epicurean, 
a heroism of soul and a superiority to the 
accidents of time unknown to the Stoic. He 
had " disputed in the synagogue with the Jews 



150 HELLAS. 

and with the devout persons, and in the Agora 
daily with them that met him" ; and now the 
curious philosophers, longing to hear him un- 
fold his new and strange belief in greater 
quiet and to more advantage than in the 
thronged square, led him to the Areopagus. 
He mounts the rudely excavated steps which 
lead up the rocky hill. Though short, and 
prematurely bent in person, there is on him 
the unmistakable stamp of greatness ; his 
eyes are quick and piercing, but kindly and 
sympathetic ; his nose bold and aquiline ; 
his beard thick, and already sprinkled with 
white : * evidently a strong, earnest, impetu- 
ous, but sensitive and loving spirit. About 
fifty years of age, he is at the meridian of 
his intellectual strength. Peril and hardship 
have deepened the furrows on his brow ; but 
his wan features are aglow with holy ardour, 
inspired by his single purpose to proclaim, 
among the baffled seekers after wisdom, " the 
power and the wisdom of God." 

* On the personal appearance of the Apostle, see Edwards's 
Encyclopaedia of Religious Knowledge, Art. " Paul." 



THE RUINS OF ATHENS. 151 

He ascends to the levelled platform of rock 
on which the Court of the Areopagus held its 
sessions ; near him, on the brow of the hill, 
is a temple of Ares ; immediately below him, 
in a cleft in the rock, the dark sanctuary of 
the Eumenides ; above him tower the temples 
and statues of the Acropolis ; around, in what- 
soever direction he turns his eye, it falls upon 
the shrine or statue of some one of those gods 
whom the hospitable mythology of the Athe- 
nians received in greater numbers, and whom 
they worshipped with more devotion, than any 
other city on the earth. He opens his mouth, 
but it is not to utter the words of fanatical 
denunciation. Nay, he commends the Athe- 
nians for their obedience to that instinctive 
impulse which leads man to bow down before 
the conception of divine power : widely apart 
as stand their systems and his, in this elemen- 
tary principle they meet at one : and, having 
conciliated his hearers by the recognition, so 
far, of the legitimacy of their worship, he pro- 
ceeds to point out its misdirection, and guide 
them to its true object. " Ye men of Athens," 
he says, in words of masterly rhetoric, no less 



152 HELLAS. 

than of sacred and momentous import, " I 
perceive that in all things ye are much inclined 
to reverence divine power. For as I passed 
by, and beheld the objects of your worship, I 
found an altar with this inscription : To the 
Unknown God. Whom therefore ye worship, 
though ye know him not, him declare I unto 
you." The Apostle was interrupted by cries 
of derision, before he had given utterance to 
all that burdened his heart ; yet how compre- 
hensive his speech ! How significant, beneath 
the shadows of the Parthenon, and almost at 
the feet of the idol statues of Phidias, the dec- 
larations that God " dwelleth not in temples 
made with hands," and that " we ought not 
to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or 
silver, or stone, graven by art and man's de- 
vice " ; how apt the quotation, from " certain 
of their own poets," 

" For we are also His offspring " ! * 

* This half-line, tov yap kol yivos itrpev, is found both in 
the Hymn to Zeus of the Stoic Cleanthes, and in the Phaeno- 
mena of Aratus, an astronomical poem. Two other quotations 
from the Greek poets were made by the learned Apostle ; viz. 
1 Corinth, xv. 33 : 



THE RUINS OF ATHENS. 153 

And although, " when they heard of the res- 
urrection of the dead, some mocked," and to 
many of that throng of Greeks the doctrine of 
Christ crucified was " foolishness," the seed 
was not sown that day in vain ; " certain 
men " — among them an honourable member 
of the council of the Areopagus — " clave 
unto him and believed " ; nor was it without 
instruction for all future time that the picture 
has been given us in the sacred record, of the 
proclamation, in the proudest seat of human 
philosophy, of the revealed mysteries of Chris- 
tian truth. 

Turn we from the stand of the sacred mes- 
senger whom Longinus enumerates among the 
masters of Grecian eloquence, to that Bema 
from which the secular orators of Athens 
launched their thunderbolts. The Pnyx, or 
place in which the parliamentary assemblies 
of the people were held, lies on the gently 

(f)d€Lpov(TLv rjdrj xpyvQ* 6/xtX/at KciKai, 
from the Thais, a comedy of Menander ; and Tit. i. 12 : 

KpfJTcs ae\ \jf€V(TTai, Ka<a 6r)p[a, yacrrepcs dpyai, 

from Epimenides, the Cretan prophet and poet. 



154 HELLAS. 

sloping side of a low, rocky hill of limestone, 
thinly clad with herbage, about a quarter of 
a mile west of the Areopagus.* A platform 
of rock, nearly semicircular, with an area of 
twelve thousand square yards, was the simple 
gathering-place of the Demos. No seats were 
provided, except a few wooden benches in the 
first row, but the citizens stood, as in Faneuil 
Hall, or sat upon the bare floor of rock. With 
no canopy but the vault of heaven, they chose 
the morning hour for their meetings, before 
the sun's rays should become oppressive. A 
vertical wall, made by excavating the solid 
rock of the hill, forms the southern boundary, 
and is the chord of the segment ; the ground 
slopes gradually from this wall to the circum- 
ference of the area, in whose lowest point, near 
the centre of the arc, is built a terrace wall of 
huge polygonal blocks, fifteen feet high, within 
which the depression has been filled. Project- 
ing from the middle of the southern wall is the 

* Distinguished scholars have disputed the correctness of 
this site ; but, after examining the arguments on both sides, it 
seems to me that the propriety of placing it here is established 
by a strong concurrence of probabilities. 



THE RUINS OF ATHENS. 155 

Bema, — a stand or pulpit, of rectangular form, 
twenty feet high, and eleven feet broad at the 
top, widening at the base into seats, which rise 
three or four in number above each other, and 
its summit reached by a flight of steps. It 
were long to enumerate the objects of immortal 
renown which met the eye of the orator as he 
stood upon this block ; nothing was wanting 
that could remind him of his country's great- 
ness and her fame. Nor need I recount the 
visions which rise before the mind of the 
scholar as he stands on this haunted rock, — 
the mighty shades of orators and statesmen, 

" Those ancient, whose resistless eloquence 
Wielded at will that fierce democratic" 

The rock wall at the side of the Bema is full 
of tiny niches for offerings, and various little 
marble representations of different parts of the 
body have been found in the neighbourhood, 
here hung, as are similar images before the 
shrine of a favourite saint in some Catholic 
churches, and dedicated to Zeus Hupsistos. 
We are not to wonder at this consecration of 
the ground devoted to political assemblages ; 
it is in complete accordance with the " relig- 



156 HELLAS. 

iousness " of the Athenians, which " made of 
every public place and building a sanctuary." 
Passing over the hill of the Nymphs, crowned 
by an excellent astronomical Observatory re- 
cently built by the liberality of a wealthy 
Greek residing in Austria, a short walk brings 
us to the best-preserved relic of the great 
days of Athens, the Temple of Theseus,* — at 
once the temple and the tomb of the mythic 
founder of the Athenian form of popular 
government. It is a memorial at the same 
time of the hero's friend, Heracles, and of the 
alliance between the cities which the two re- 
present, Athens and Argos. The ten metopes 
of the eastern front were adorned with sculp- 
ture representing the labours of Heracles, 
while only eight (the four adjoining the east- 
ern front on either flank) commemorated the 

* This temple is of the Doric order, of Pentelic marble, 
with six columns at each end, and thirteen on each side. It 
is about thirty years older than the Parthenon. Its length is 
one hundred and four feet, breadth forty-five, and height to the 
summit of the pediment thirty-three and a half. The stylo- 
bate is mounted by two steps, instead of three. — a fact which, 
as has been suggested, may indicate its inferiority as an 
heroum to a temple. 



THE RUINS OF ATHENS. 157 

exploits of Theseus. None of the other me- 
topes were ornamented ; but both the eastern 
and western pediments were filled with sculp- 
tures, known only by the traces left of their 
metallic fastenings. The remains of the me- 
topes, and of the friezes of the pronaos and 
posticum, are of a bold and noble style of art. 
The color of the marble walls and pillars of 
the Theseum, as of the Parthenon and all the 
old ruins of Athens, has been changed, by long 
and gradual oxidation, to an " autumnal hue," 
— a mellow golden brown, so rich and satisfy- 
ing that one would not exchange it for the 
whiteness of stone freshly quarried. 

Very appropriately, this temple is now occu- 
pied as a Museum of relics of ancient Greek 
art. Statues and reliefs, — often dating from 
the best periods, and of great beauty and sig- 
nificance, — and a collection of inscriptions of 
more or less interest, are sheltered within its 
walls. They were picked up or excavated in 
the city and its neighbourhood, or, in some 
cases, in distant parts of the kingdom. I have 
vivid memories of the grace and beauty of 
some of these statues, but regret that my notes 



158 HELLAS. 

are not full enough to justify any attempt 
to describe them ; — indeed, under the best 
circumstances, what adequate description of 
either a painting or a statue can be given 
in words ? Particularly noteworthy are the 
reliefs upon the marble gravestones, the no- 
ble workmanship of the followers of Phidias. 
These represent some family group, — most fre- 
quently a husband and a wife, but often with 
the addition of other members of the domestic 
circle, — and are generally taken to repre- 
sent "l'adieu supreme." With that delicate 
feeling, however, which in language led the 
Greeks to abstain from words of ill omen, and 
to soften the expression of everything disagree- 
able, the sculptor represented none of the pain- 
ful features of the parting hour ; not from the 
couch of sickness extends a wasted hand, but 
the departed wife or husband stands or sits in 
the full bloom and vigour of health, and clad 
in the garments of e very-day life. A child 
may be gazing into that face which is soon to 
be hidden in the tomb ; attendants may hold 
b ifore it an unconscious infant ; but there is 
nothing to denote death rather than life, ex- 



THE RUINS OF ATHENS. 159 

cept a silent sorrow, a sad foreboding, delicate- 
ly impressed on every countenance, and im- 
mortalized in the marble, in the calm repose 
of perfect art. The right hands of the two 
principal figures, extended towards each other 
for clasping, or actually clasped, speak plainly 
of parting ; but it is the happiness of life, to 
be darkened by that parting, and not the hid- 
eousness and ghastliness of death, which is 
represented : — so different in spirit are Greek 
art and Teutonic. Comparatively humble as 
they are, these sepulchral monuments can boast 
the characteristic merits of the statelier sculp- 
tures of the Parthenon frieze, — an unaffected 
naturalness and simplicity, an exquisite del- 
icacy and refinement, a depth of meaning, 
told by the simplest touches, and a power of 
breathing the breath of life into marble, in 
which the sculptors of Athens, if ever equalled, 
can never be surpassed. 

The monument of Aristion, an old Maratho- 
nian warrior, is one of the most noteworthy 
in this collection. On a high and narrow 
pillar of Pentelic marble is carved, in low 
relief, the figure of the worthy hoplite, armed 



160 HELLAS. 

with cuirass and greaves and helmet, and 
grasping a long lance in his left hand. Stur- 
dy and stalwart, he makes the battle of Mara- 
thon a reality. With a certain stiffness, there 
is a remarkable truthfulness and vigour in the 
delineation of the various parts of the body ; 
and while the artificially curled hair and beard, 
and the set smile on the lips, remind you of 
Assyrian sculptures, there is a life and free- 
dom in tliD whole effect, which you recognize 
as a gleam of the untrammelled inspiration 
that, breaking all bonds of conventionality in 
the spontaneous play of genius, created the 
subsequent wonders of the Phidian age. 

The decided traces of colour in this ancient 
work have a particular importance in the his- 
tory of painted sculpture. They confirm the 
opinion, that " only ornaments as ornaments, 
and those portions of the body in which nature 
herself passes from the simple flesh-tone to 
more decided colouring, — as the eye, the hair, 
the lip, — were accessible to colour, never the 
flesh as flesh." 

Plunging into the tangle of the modern 
town, you find in the yard behind an humble 



THE RUINS OF ATHENS. 161 

V 

house a singular statue, — perhaps of Erich- 
thonius, — represented as a man to the middle, 
thence a dragon with a fish's tail. The chest 
is vigorous and bold, the muscles strongly 
marked, but the joint between man and drag- 
on abrupt and unskilful. In a cellar near by, 
I saw a similar statue (then recently discov- 
ered and but partially excavated), lying hor- 
izontally, and forming part of the foundations 
of the house. There are some interesting 
architectural remains of the Eoman period 
in the midst of the town, — the portico of 
Athena Archegetis, consisting of four Doric 
pillars sustaining a pediment, bearing an in- 
scription recording that the building (of which 
these are the only remains) was erected by 
means of donations from C. Julius Caesar and 
Augustus, — and the rich Corinthian columns 
of the Stoa of Hadrian. 

In the outskirts of the modern city, on the 
southeast, stands the Gate of Hadrian, in- 
scribed, on the side facing the Acropolis, " This 
is Athens, the ancient city of Theseus " ; on 
the other, " This is the city of Hadrian, and 
not of Theseus." It formed an entrance to the 
11 



162 HELLAS. 

enclosure of the great Temple of the Olympian 
Zeus, whose ruins, if without the peculiar in- 
terest which invests the monuments of Ictinian 
and Phidian art, are among the most beautiful 
and imposing in the world. They consist of an 
exquisite group of pure Corinthian columns, 
of Pentelic marble, rising to the height of 
above sixty feet, and by rare good fortune so 
unencumbered and remote from incongruous 
objects as to keep the charm of their grace 
and their stateliness unimpaired. Fifteen of 
these columns, the loftiest of their kind in 
marble in all Europe, still stand in their origi- 
nal places, while a sixteenth, blown down in 
a storm in the autumn of 1852, needs only 
the replacing of its stones to be as perfect 
as before. But where are the rest of the one 
hundred and twenty columns, — where the 
walls of the colossal temple ? * It is almost 

* This temple of Jove, which Livy speaks of as " the only 
one in the world undertaken upon a scale commensurate with 
the majesty of the god," was three hundred and fifty -four feet in 
length, and one hundred and seventy-one in breadth. A double 
range of columns at the sides, and a triple range on either 
front, made up the peristyle, which had ten columns on each 



THE RUINS OF ATHENS. 163 

inconceivable how the depredations for build- 
ing material, made in the Middle Ages, could 
have exhausted such a quarry. 

The charm of this stately group of columns 
is all their own, for they boast no such fas- 
cinating associations as those which cluster 
around the ruins on the Acropolis. Begun 
by the tyrant Pisistratus, and finished seven 
hundred years afterwards by the Roman Em- 
peror Hadrian, the Olympieum, though one of 
the grandest temples in the world, seems hard- 
ly a part of the glory of Athens, — breathes 
not her peculiar spirit, nor is redolent with 

front, and twenty on each side. There were also three col- 
umns between antse at each end of the cella. The exterior 
enclosure was about half a mile in circumference. 

The columns were more than six feet and a half in diameter, 
and above sixty feet high. Each one (as I found by examina- 
tion of the prostrate pillar) is fluted with twenty-four channels, 
the regular number, and composed of twenty-one cylindrical 
blocks, whose upper and lower surfaces, at which the different 
blocks come in contact, are polished to extreme smoothness, 
except at the centre, where a little circular space is left rough 
and uneven) near the exterior two cramps of iron are inserted, 
opposite each other, by which the drums were joined firmly 
together. These inner surfaces, not having been exposed to 
the air, are of the most exquisite whiteness. 



164 HELLAS. 

the aroma of her soil. Yet Grecian hands 
have hewn those shafts and shaped those love- 
ly capitals, and Nature, " adopting them into 
her race," has given them on this broad plain 
a home second only to the rocky pedestal of 
the Parthenon in its fitness to display and en- 
hance the loveliness of its inhabitants. 

You find here the same rich, mellow brown 
or iron-rust hue, the same weather-stains and 
battered edges, as in the other ruins. A mod- 
ern excrescence will attract your eye, on the 
architrave above one of the columns, — the 
remains of a little cell of brick, once inhabited 
by a monk emulous of the fame of St. Simeon 
Stylites. The odour of his sanctity attracted 
old women around his dizzy perch, and they 
kept him supplied with food, which he drew 
up in a basket. A young guide who accompa- 
nied me in my first strolls about Athens, and 
prided himself on his linguistic accomplish- 
ments, told me, as he pointed out this cell, 
" There was a monkee used to live up there." 
I did not correct his English in this instance. 

Modern Athens uses the open space around 
the Olympieum as a pleasure-ground. Here 



THE RUINS OP ATHENS. 165 

on any pleasant afternoon or evening you will 
find Greek men and women, in their peculiar 
dress, seated at tables picturesquely grouped 
among the ruins, and partaking of cakes and 
wine or coffee, furnished from a shop close by. 
Men and youths, hand in hand, their red caps 
flashing and blue tassels waving in the air, 
dance along, singing Greek songs in nasal 
strains of Chinese-like music. Perhaps a 
mother leans against one of the columns, with 
her son's head in her lap, while she rids him 
of" certain personal companions." And some 
donkey, feeding or carrying a load in your 
neighbourhood, gives utterance ever and anon 
to the prolonged, unearthly vocal agonies for 
which that beast is remarkable. 

A massive buttressed wall of large blocks of 
stone supports the platform on which the tem- 
ple stands, and separates it from the lower 
ground which slopes down to the Ilissus. This 
classic stream is but a scanty brooklet, al- 
though the width of its bed and the depth of 
the channel attest its occasional importance 
when swollen by the rains. It is crossed, at 
the point where you would strike it on walk- 



166 HELLAS. 

ing down from the Olympieum, by a tasteful 
modern bridge of white marble, with three 
arches. Above lies the little pool and fountain 
of Callirrhoe, whose waters trickle from be- 
neath a bank of rocks, which are themselves 
picturesque in their varied outline. Ascend- 
ing the stream, you walk upon its dry bed of 
sand and pebbles till you have come near the 
Stadium, — where I again found water flowing 
in the channel, — and you reach the piers of 
the ruined bridge which here in old time with 
a hugh arch spanned the stream. Then, step- 
ping across the Ilissus, you enter the long 
hollow between precipitously rising hills, where 
was the Stadium Panathenaicum, the scene 
in the classic age of many a feat of strength 
and speed, sometimes imitated on the same 
spot in these degenerate days. The hills them- 
selves, aided by excavation and by artificial 
constructions of masonry, make the walls of 
the edifice, in the form of an elongated horse- 
shoe.* Their sides were lined with marble 

* The length of the Stadium was six hundred and seventy- 
five feet, its width one hundred and thirty-seven feet at the 
lower end, but nearly twice as great at the rounded end, where 
the chariots turned. 



THE RUINS OF ATHENS. 167 

seats, which have now totally disappeared, 
accommodating twenty-five thousand specta- 
tors, while multitudes more could stand above, 
and view the games. A winding passage-way 
through the hill, near the upper end of the 
Stadium, mercifully afforded the means of an 
unnoticed exit to the unfortunate competitors 
who were distanced in the race. 

We have nearly completed our survey of the 
most important ruins of Athens ; but there are 
still places, whose very names are spells of 
potency the world over, that we must visit. 
Let us first, returning along the Ilissus, and 
crossing past the southern side of that rocky 
height, the pedestal of the Parthenon, ascend 
the hill Musseum, which lies a short distance 
to the southwest of the Acropolis. Here we 
shall be detained a few moments by the ruins 
of the sepulchral monument of Philopappus, — 
a work of the age of Hadrian, adorned with 
statues and sculptured reliefs not without 
merit. But a deeper interest attaches to some 
hewn chambers in the rock at the base of this 
hill, called the " Prison of Socrates." They 
are three in number, and the inner chamber 



168 HELLAS. 

has a funnel-shaped dome, with a round aper- 
ture letting in the light from the top. How- 
ever doubtful the tradition which has given 
these excavations their popular name, no trav- 
eller will regret to be reminded of a scene so 
impressive as the death of that inspired hea- 
then, who, when he was confronted with his 
judges, and when he conversed with his friends 
before his execution, taught that we should 
recompense to no man evil for evil,* and that 
no evil can happen to a good man living or 
dead.f 

And, having ennobled ourselves with the 
memory of Socrates, let us seek a fitting place 
to pay our homage to his greatest pupil. A 
walk of a little more than a mile, in a north- 
erly direction, will lead us to the Academy. 
Our road, after leaving the town, passes through 
low vineyards and olive-groves, watered by 
little streamlets led from the Cephissus. A 
gentleman's garden and summer residence now 
occupy the site of the grove of Academus. 
A few little marble posts, a few fragments of 
statues and architectural ornaments imbedded 

* Plato's Crito, 49. t Apol. Soc, 41 D. 



THE RUINS OF ATHENS. 169 

in the wall of a reservoir, are all that indicate 
the structures with which it was adorned ; but 
beautiful trees here wave their branches, and 
sweet flowers bloom as of old. Look up, and 
beyond the wide meadow and the town, that 
stately Acropolis 

" Her pillared wreck of chastest shrines 
Upholds serene and still." 

The gardener at my visit plucked me a handful 
of white and red roses, — a graceful offering 
to a stranger from remote Atlantis. 

We may extend our walk a short distance 
northwards to two little hills, which rise to 
the height of about a hundred feet above the 
plain, and mark the site of the Attic deme 
Colonos, immortalized in song. On one of 
these hills a marble monument points out the 
grave of that profound and genial scholar, 
Earl Ottfried Miiller. 

The flower of all my memories of Athenian 
grace and beauty is the recollection of my last 
night in the violet-crowned city. I had seen 
my last sunset from the Acropolis, gilding that 
varied picture of sea and shore. Hymettus, 
at whose feet the vale of Athens nestles, had 



170 HELLAS. 

put on, for my delight, his evening robes of 
lilac and violet, Pentelicus his kingly purple, 
and Lycabettus his beaming gold. In the soft 
twilight I walked from hill to hill, and ruin 
to ruin, to bid farewell to their now familiar 
charms. And when the moon, then near her 
full, had rolled a flood of silver radiance over 
the scene, I bent again my reverent steps to 
the Parthenon, — explored every corner, every 
stone, — rambled over the hill, to different 
points of view, or sat on fallen columns, or in 
the marble chairs of the Areopagites, now 
brought up to the temple. And while for 
hours I drank in the beauty of harmonious 
forms revealed in white light and tender shad- 
ows, or indulged the dreams which the associ- 
ations of the place inspired, a deeper feeling 
of gratitude filled my heart with thanksgiving, 
and hallowed my delight. 



EXCURSIONS. 



jEGINA. 



Beautiful iEgina, the old rival of Athens, 
lies in full view from her hills, at the distance 
of about twenty miles from the Peiraeus. One 
fine morning in the last of June, I joined a 
party on an expedition to this island. It was 
a company calculated to appreciate the full in- 
terest of what would be seen ; there was my 
old companion, the Professor, — my messmate, 
the indefatigable scholar, — and a young Ger- 
man artist, with the gift of song, employed by 
the Queen on paintings for the palace. Fran- 
jois, the most learned, intelligent, and agree- 
able of Greek guides, again accompanied us as 
factotum. We drove before sunrise to the 
Peiraeus, making our way outside the town, 
to the right, to a little cove where a sail-boat 
with two oarsmen had come to meet us, thus 
evading the port laws which allow no boat to 



172 HELLAS. 

leave the harbour before ten o'clock. By the 
way, the navigation laws of the Greek king- 
dom are very injudicious, and tend, by their 
foolish restrictions, to throw a great part of 
the carrying trade into the hands of the for- 
eign steamers which ply between the Greek 
ports. A good breeze bore us rapidly along, 
and in two or three hours we landed on the 
northeast side of the island,, where we saw ex- 
cavations in the rocks just covered by the 
water, and other indications of the existence 
of a port there in ancient times. We walked 
to a garden a little way from the shore, look- 
ing greener than the greater part of the land 
in the neighbourhood, and there, among grape- 
vines and under a broad fig-tree, took our 
lunch. 

Francois talked with us about his nation, 
and expressed decidedly his disapprobation of 
the King, for his personal, as well as his politi- 
cal qualities ; " for," said he, " he is deaf, he 
squints, he lisps, and he has no children ! " 
But we were impatient to reach the temple, 
which we had seen to good advantage before 
gaining the shore ; its graceful pillars, on the 



jEgina. 173 

summit of a considerable elevation, being beau- 
tifully relieved against the sky. We climbed 
the hill, which is dotted with pretty bushes 
and small trees, and found the remains of 
the temple quite noteworthy, — twenty col- 
umns of the peribolos and two of the cella 
standing entire, and still surmounted by the 
architrave. Drums of the fallen columns lay 
scattered here and there, in the most pictu- 
resque confusion ; and the green shrubs on the 
sloping sides of the hill, the view of vales and 
heights in the interior of the island, and the 
all-glorious prospect of the sea and the Attic 
coast from Sunium to Salamis, made up, with 
the beautiful ruins, a scene of unusual interest 
and variety. The stone of which the temple 
is built is of a light gray colour, and porous. 
Where exposed to the storms, it has been con- 
siderably worn and eaten. It was covered 
with stucco, — now almost entirely worn away, 
— and, in parts, beautifully painted; the walls 
of the cella were vermilion-red, the tympanum 
azure, the architrave adorned with yellow and 
green foliage, the triglyphs blue, the guttae of 
the same colour, and the fillets above them 



174 HELLAS. 

red. The upper mouldings of the cornice, 
and the roof, were of marble. We were dis- 
appointed in the size of the temple. The 
pillars, seen in the clear air at a distance, from 
the sea, give the idea of a much larger build- 
ing than is actually found.* 

Leake still maintains the old, and certainly 
the most grateful belief, that this is that re- 
nowned temple of Zeus Panhellenius built 
on the spot where the prayers of ^Eacus, the 
most pious of mankind, appeased the wrath of 
heaven, and stayed the plague of famine and 
barrenness with which the gods had smitten 
all Greece. But the opinion advanced by 
Stackelberg in 1826, that it was dedicated to 
Athena, has met with general favour among 
scholars. I fancy that the artist who was with 
us, and who carried away a beautiful sketch 
of the lovely ruin, cared little about its name. 
With the hill it crowns, and the magnificent 
prospect of sea and shore which it com- 
mands, this temple has furnished the subject 

* The temple was ninety-four feet in length, and forty-five 
in breadth. It was peripteral, having six columns on each 
front and thirteen on each side. 



-EGINA. 175 

of some of the most beautiful of modern paint- 
ings. One by Turner, in the possession of an 
English nobleman, which I saw in an exhibi- 
tion in London, struck me as one of the most 
satisfactory and admirable of that great mas- 
ter's productions. 

The pedimental sculptures dug up in front 
of the temple in 1811, and skilfully restored 
by Thorwaldsen, are the best examples extant 
of pre-Phidian art. No traces of them are 
now to be found on the spot, but I saw and 
studied them in Munich, where they are pre- 
served in the Glyptothek as its greatest treas- 
ure. They had been broken, many of them, 
into so small fragments that their restoration 
was a miracle of skill. The sculptures of the 
western pediment are the better preserved, but 
those of the eastern were wrought in a higher 
style of art. In the western group the subject 
is the fight of Greek heroes, chiefly of the race 
of the JEginetan ^Eacus, with the Trojans, 
for the dead body of Patroclus (or, as some 
will have it, of Achilles) ; in the eastern, is 
represented the fight of Hercules and Tela- 
mon the son of -ZEacus with the Trojans, for 



176 HELLAS. 

the body of a fallen Greek, probably Oicles. 
Athena presides over both combats, forming 
the central figure in each pediment; a fact 
favouring the hypothesis that the temple was 
built in her honour. In the older sculptures 
(of the western pediment) we find something 
of the stiffness and angularity of early art ; 
the muscles, too, are exaggerated, the propor- 
tions of the figures remarkably short, the hair 
is elaborately curled, and every mouth wears 
a smile. But the joints and sinews are accu- 
rately defined, and a conscientious, careful 
aiming at truthfulness to nature is conspicu- 
ous throughout, even in the exaggerations. 
Again, in the life of the attitudes, and the 
spirit of the grouping, as well as in the truth- 
ful anatomical delineation of the different mus- 
cles and members, an immense superiority 
to Ninevite and Egyptian art appears, and 
the unequalled skill of the Greek begins to 
be manifest. In the sculptures of the eastern 
pediment, the defects of the old style have 
nearly vanished, except in the heads ; and the 
anatomical truth of representation is aston- 
ishing. But five figures remain of this east- 



^EGINA. 177 

ern group. Among them two are particularly 
admirable : a nude warrior advancing, with 
outstretched arms, — a figure which in perfec- 
tion of anatomical treatment, and in lifelike- 
ness, ease, and meaning, can hardly be sur- 
passed, — and a wounded, prostrate combat- 
ant, — probably King Laomedon, who was 
slain by Hercules, — a sculpture not unwor- 
thy of comparison with the Dying Gladiator. 

The figure of Athena in the western group 
(but small fragments of her statue on the 
eastern pediment are preserved) is a little 
more rigid and less expressive than the others, 
having the archaic character of the hieratic 
style, — the Greek sculptors of that period 
deeming it their duty to adhere as closely as 
possible to the old traditionary representations 
of their deities, which were hallowed by time 
and by sacred associations, but, being the cre- 
ations of a less advanced age, were deficient 
both in anatomical truth and in expression 
of intellectual life. 

In that part of the island which we saw, 
the soil was dry and scorched, and the vege- 
tation scanty. There were, to be sure, one 
12 



178 HELLAS. 

or two carob-trees, and many figs and olives. 
Ants were numerous, but we met none of 
the Myrmidons. A man or two in the fields, 
and a few boys watering donkeys at a well 
in a hollow, were the only human beings 
that encountered us on old sea-ruling iEgi- 
na, " the stranger-thronged Dorian island." 

The wind had gone down when we got 
again upon the water, and we had to depend 
on our oars to return. The long passage was 
enlivened by pleasant talk, and songs both 
Greek and German. Our Greek song was an 
improvisation by the Professor, who imitated 
capitally the nasal unearthly intonations and 
Chinese rudeness of Modern Greek singing. 

PENTELICUS. 

At about half past eight on the morning of 
the 14th of May, we started — Clyde, Nixon, 
and myself — for a drive from Athens to 
Pentelicus. Our kind companion and guide 
boasted the classic name of Odysseus Kynegos. 
The sun gave unwelcome earnest of his mid- 
day fury ; yet we rode comfortably through 



PENTELICUS. 179 

vineyards, olive-gardens, and wide fields, whose 
dry, thin soil, though barren and untilled, was 
fragrant with aromatic herbs, and gay with red 
poppies, rose-coloured mallows, white and pink 
convolvtili, daisies, and bright yellow flowers. 
Gradually rising from the plain, we arrived at 
length at a delightful grove of tall, handsome 
silver-poplars, with a clear babbling brook run- 
ning through it, — thrice welcome both, in 
that parched and treeless land. How we rev- 
elled in the shade, and the coolness, and the 
greenness, — in the music of the water and 
its refreshing draughts ! 

M Te flagrantis atrox hora Caniculae 
Nescit tangere, tu frigus amabile 
Praebes." 

After a lunch in the grove, we walked to a 
ruinous monastery just above it, in whose 
court-yard grew a noble laurel of great size, 
and whose chapel is adorned with Byzantin- 
esque pictures of sacred personages, quaint 
and stiff, — as are all the productions of the 
school of Mount Athos, — but not without 
feeling. 

A monk conducting us to the proper path, 



180 HELLAS. 

we began the long, hot, laborious ascent of 
the mountain. We passed the quarries in 
which the sculptures of Phidias slept uncon- 
scious before his hammer and chisel knocked 
off the encumbering marble and brought them 
into the light. Bits of marble of dazzling 
whiteness, scattered all along our path, re- 
flected the sun with a blinding glare. We 
found mica-slate abundant, and some speci- 
mens of delicate rosy and white quartz, and 
crystals of calcareous spar. Pentelicus is a 
mass of compact limestone or marble, rest- 
ing on a stratum of micaceous slate, " of 
unknown thickness," which seems to form 
the base of all the mountains of Attica. The 
juniper and the arbutus, prickly oaks, len- 
tisks, and bays, clothe the sides of the moun- 
tain, which were also plentifully besprent 
with yellow immortelles. Stopping now and 
then where we could find a little shade under 
the bushes, we refreshed ourselves with juicy 
oranges, — a provident thought of Clyde's, 
which I recommend to all mountain climb- 
ers in hot countries. But at length poor 
Kynegos's heart failed him, at the foot of a 



PENTELICUS. 181 

very precipitous crag which we had to scale, 
and he turned back to await us at the mon- 
astery. 

"Hills peep o'er hills" on Pentelicus, as 
on other mountains ; but after several les- 
sons on the vanity of human expectations, 
we planted proud, conquering feet upon the 
topmost height, and forgot our toil in the 
enjoyment of the glorious prospect.* First 
in interest was the view of the plain of 
Marathon, the general topography of which 
can here be studied to great advantage ; the 
knowledge I gained of it stood me in stead, 
when subsequently, with an incompetent 
guide, I visited the field itself. Lovely 
indeed is the natural scenery which human 
deeds have clothed with such interest. The 
sweep with which the bright beach of sil- 
ver sands curves into the crescent of the 
Cynosura is exquisitely charming. Beyond, 
from the blue waters, rose Eubcea, with its 
hills of picturesque outline softened in the 

* Pentelicus is, next to Parnes, the highest mountain in 
Attica. Its summit is 3,637 feet above the sea; that of Par- 
nes 4,592, Hymettus 3,340, and Lycabettus 903. 



182 HELLAS. 

summer haze. We traced the four passes to 
the field of Marathon, one on the north be- 
yond the marshes, two at the west, and one 
at the south by the sea. Nor were we insen- 
sible to the beauty and thrilling interest of 
the whole panorama, — mountains and val- 
leys, and islands and sea, — for the whole of 
Attica lay at our feet. 

A cairn has been built on the summit by 
the contributions of successive travellers ; to 
which we did not omit to add each our stone. 
Descending, we dined in that Elysian grove, 
where the simplest fare was nectar and am- 
brosia, and then dashed back through the 
thyme-scented plain to Athens, the never-sa- 
tiating Acropolis before us all the way. 



THE MODERN CAPITAL AND KINGDOM. 

"Another Athens shall arise, 
And to remoter time 
Bequeath, like sunset to the skies, 
The splendour of its prime." 

Shelley. 

Modern Athens presents in its aspect the 
same incongruity, the same intermixture of 
barbarity and civilization, as the modern king- 
dom and people of Greece herself. Its nu- 
cleus is a confused, dirty, ill-built Turkish vil- 
lage, of narrow, crooked lanes, and low huts 
without windows ; beyond this has grown 
up a modern European capital, with regular 
streets and neat and handsome houses, in 
comfort and elegance worthy of the nineteenth 
century. A solitary palm rises above the 
shabby post-office, and is a graceful feature in 
every view of the city. Near it, on a high 
tower, is the only public clock, the gift of Lord 
Elgin. The streets of ^Eolus and of Hermes, 
which intersect each other at right angles, are 



184 HELLAS. 

the principal thoroughfares ; they are both 
straight, except that the latter curves gently in 
one part to avoid a picturesque little church, 
in quaint Byzantine style. There are several 
other Byzantine churches in the city, of con- 
siderable antiquity and no little architectural 
interest. Of the modern buildings, the Palace 
is the most pretentious ; it fronts a fine square 
at the western end of Hermes Street, and is 
sufficiently ugly on the" exterior, looking like a 
long, dreary barrack ; the interior, however, 
is bright with painting and rich with marble. 
A better taste has been displayed in the Uni- 
versity, which has a fine marble Ionic portico, 
successfully adorned with colours and gilding 
about the capitals and in the sunken com- 
partments of the roof. The new Cathedral, of 
Byzantine architecture and built of marble, 
though unfinished at my visit, gave promise of 
a stately edifice. 

Of productive industry there are few tokens. 
The people in general find plenty of leisure 
for idling at cafes or walking about. Their 
favourite promenade is along iEolus Street, in 
its northward continuation beyond the city to 



THE MODERN CAPITAL AND KINGDOM. 185 

the little suburb of Patissia, a distance of a 
little over half a mile. It is a dusty road, with 
nothing attractive immediately about it, but 
it affords a delightful view of the long and pic- 
turesquely involved range of Parnes in front, 
while on the left you have the blue JEgean, 
soft, yet metallic in its lustre, and beyond in 
the distance the Peloponnesian hills, on the 
right bold Lycabettus, and behind you that 
grand, " vast altar," the Acropolis. On every 
pleasant evening the promenade is frequented, 
but on Sundays the whole population crowd 
it : tall, slender youths from the University 
— pale and thin, many of them, but some 
of superb beauty — swing along in an inde- 
pendent gait, their waists laced excruciatingly 
tight ; priests, in long robes of black and black 
caps, and with long hair and beard, mingle in 
the throng ; gentlemen and ladies on horse- 
back, both Greek and foreign, and families in 
carriages, dash by ; till all collect around a 
stand in an open area to the right of the road, 
whence a military band discourses music. On 
such occasions, the King and Queen, when 
they were in the city, seldom failed to join the 



186 HELLAS. 

circle, well mounted, to listen to the perform- 
ance and exchange salutations with their sub- 
jects. 

You will notice here, and wherever you 
meet the people, that the men almost inva- 
riably carry a rosary, whose beads they are 
continually telling and twirling in their fin- 
gers, — but not for any purposes of devotion ; 
for this is only an ingenious expedient by 
which the Greeks avoid the question, some- 
times troublesome in the polished society of 
Western nations, " What shall gentlemen do 
with their hands? " The lounger in the cafe, 
the tradesman behind his counter, the judge 
on the bench, and the senator in the Boule, all 
preserve the equilibrium of their nerves and 
muscles by means of this regulator. 

Landscape gardening has not been attempt- 
ed except in the Queen's garden, in the rear 
of the palace ; but here with decided success. 
In the evenings of June days of suffocating 
heat, I found these grounds a most delightful 
resort, and refreshed myself with the costly 
verdure of their turf and foliage, and the 
beauty of their flowers, so grateful in contrast 



THE MODERN CAPITAL AND KINGDOM. 187 

with the parched and bare appearance of all 
other ground in the neighbourhood. Amongst 
other treasures, the Queen prided herself on 
her oleanders, of many colours, and often with 
double flowers. Fortunately, remains of a 
Roman villa were found here, and its mosaic 
pavements, surrounded with living walls of 
flowers, give additional interest to the garden, 
which can also boast — what is indeed one of 
its chief attractions — a near view of the col- 
umns of Olympian Zeus. 

The aspect of Greek affairs is more encour- 
aging on the side of intellectual than on that 
of material progress. In provision for the 
education of the people, Greece has been 
more liberal than some of the foremost 
nations of Europe. Her demotic or com- 
mon schools in every village, her " Hellenic 
schools," (in which ancient Greek, Latin, 
and French are taught,) and her gymnasia in 
the larger towns, and, crowning all, her Uni- 
versity, with its able corps of upwards of 
fifty Professors, its library of nearly a hun- 
dred and twenty thousand volumes, and its six 
hundred students, constitute a complete appa- 



188 HELLAS. 

ratus for the instruction of her future citizens 
up from the first lessons of childhood to the 
highest fields of science. 

The University of Otho (its designation 
indicates only that Greece had a German 
monarch, not that he manifested any extra- 
ordinary liberality in endowing her institu- 
tions of learning) attracts students from all 
the islands and shores of the iEgean. It is, 
indeed, the eye of the modern Greek race, 
and second only to the Greek Church as a 
rallying-point for the sentiment of national- 
ity. Besides the regular students, the lec- 
tures are attended by many of the citizens of 
Athens, who manifest a very general thirst 
for knowledge. Judging from those I heard, 
by several of the Professors, the lectures at 
the University of Athens in interest, ability, 
and scholarship will not compare unfavourably 
with those at similar institutions in Western 
Europe and America. 

Excellent provision is made for the instruc- 
tion of young ladies, as at the schools of Mad- 
ame Mano and of the American missionaries, 
Dr. and Mrs. Hill, to both of which, as to the 



THE MODERN CAPITAL AND KINGDOM. 189 

University also, pupils are sent from all the re- 
gions in which Greeks have made their home. 
No lover of his race can contemplate these 
efforts for the diffusion of education without 
cheerful hopes for the future of such a people. 
To bind the race together, and maintain its 
own consciousness of its unity, — to perpetu- 
ate, amidst the shocks of conquest and the 
degradation of bondage, the Greek language, 
Greek ideas, and, in substance, Greek nation- 
ality, no instrumentality has been more potent 
than that of the Greek Church. There is 
something extremely imposing in the image 
which this venerable organization presents to 
the mind. The oldest division of the visible 
Church, reading the Scriptures, both of the 
Old and the New Testaments, in the same 
language in which they were read by the 
Apostles, and observing the remotest (un- 
broken) traditions of ritual and usage, — if 
the husk were the thing of value, and not the 
kernel, well might she claim allegiance and 
conformity from the whole Christian world.* 

* President Felton, in one of the notes to his edition of 



190 HELLAS. 

Yet undoubtedly in the very antiquity and 
orthodoxy on which she vaunts herself lies 
one of her greatest dangers : that of narrow- 
ness and formality, infacility of adapting her- 
self to the changing features of changing 
times, and excessive reliance in the dead let- 
ter rather than in the ever-living Spirit. But 
the independence of that division of the East- 
ern Church which is comprised within the 
limits of Greece herself, the better provision 
therein made for the education of the clergy, 
and the contact of the East with the West in 

Lord Carlisle's " Diary in Turkish and Greek Waters," quotes 
a writer in the Spectateur de V Orient as follows : — 

" If one of the holy fathers of the Council of Nicsea, — if 
St. John Chrysostom or St. Basil should return to life on 
earth, — in what part of the world, except here, would he find 
the Christian Church of their times ? At the mass, at the 
ceremonies of baptism, of marriage, etc., they would acknowl- 
edge that not an iota has been changed ; that they find in 
their places even the sacerdotal vestments, even the sacred 
psalmody, as if more than fifteen centuries had not rolled 
away since their time." 

I grant that this antiquity is illusive. It runs back only to 
a period of ecclesiastical corruption, in which the simplicity of 
the primitive churches had been sadly departed from. But 
it runs back further than that of any other existing external 
organization. 



THE MODERN CAPITAL AND KINGDOM. 191 

the advancing civilization of the new kingdom, 
must gradually give its faith a broader, more 
catholic, and more intelligent spirit. The in- 
evitable strife between "High Church" and 
" Broad Church," Old Greece and Young 
Greece, has already been inaugurated. The 
former party have very recently attempted to 
check the distribution of copies of the Holy 
Scriptures amongst the people ; but there is 
no danger of their gaining more than a tem- 
porary success, if indeed they succeed at all. 
It is a boast of the Eastern Church, that it has 
allowed, if not encouraged, the free circula- 
tion of the Bible, and that its non-Greek com- 
municants are permitted to translate its service 
into their own language. Among those of its 
features which are most open to criticism, a 
Protestant would notice the tedious length of 
its service, the infrequency of preaching, and 
the deficient education of the clergy. The 
latter defect bids fair to be materially obvi- 
ated in Otho's recent dominions.* 

* That the Eastern, as compared with Western Churches, 
exhibits the peculiarities of the Oriental mind, has often been 
remarked. An extract from the beginning of the shorter 



192 HELLAS. 

The language, though mutilated in its 
grammatical forms, and corrupted by the ac- 
cretion of foreign words, is still Greek, — the 
same language substantially as that of Homer, 
Demosthenes, and the Greek Fathers, with 
less alteration than might have been expected 
from the shocks of foreign conquest and medi- 
aeval barbarism. Any one tolerably familiar 
with classical Greek can take up an Athenian 
newspaper, or a book in the modern language, 

Catechism, used in the schools of Greece, will illustrate the 
comparatively metaphysical tone of its teachings. 

u Concerning God and His Perfections. 

"Q. What is it necessary that he should know first, who 
wishes to know God 1 

"A. He must know himself. 

"Q. Why? 

"A. Because, when a man has examined himself, he per- 
ceives that it was impossible that he should have created 
himself. 

"Q. And what dost thou infer from this ? 

"A. That he was created himself, and all other creatures, 
by one uncreated Being, the which is God. 

"Q. Hast thou other proofs that there is a God ? 

"A. The first proof is this world, which we see made with 
so much wisdom. 

"Q. What is the second ? 



THE MODERN CAPITAL AND KINGDOM. 193 

and read nearly everything on the page. 
A half-hour's study of Professor Sophocles's 
Modern Greek Grammar, to inform him of 
the chief peculiarities of the new dialect, and 
ordinary ingenuity in guessing the meaning of 
novel words, are the only assistance he need 
desire. To enable him to read the popular 
songs, however, and understand the conversa- 
tion of the common people, a dictionary will 
sometimes be requisite ; and in the use of the 

"A. The common confession of all nations that are found 
in the world ; for all, in common, believe that there is a God. 

"Q. What is the third? 

"A. Our conscience, which rejoices for the good works that 
we do, and grieves for the bad. 

"Q. And what is inferred from this ? 

"A. That there is one All-seeing and Almighty Judge, re- 
warding virtue and chastising wickedness. 

"Q. What is the fourth and final proof that there is a 
God? 

"A. The inborn desire which we have for a perfect happi- 
ness, which, however, it is impossible that we should obtain in 
this world. 

"Q. And what is inferred from this ? 

(( A. That our Creator, God, would not have implanted 
such a desire in our soul in vain, had he not intended to 
satisfy it in the other life with the supreme good, which is 
God himself." 

13 



194 HELLAS. 

spoken language, he will be obliged to habit- 
uate himself to the peculiar modern pronun- 
ciation. 

In literary activity, if not in intellectual 
achievements, the Athens of to-day repeats the 
Athens of old. She publishes more newspa- 
pers, in proportion to her population, than any 
other city on the globe ; * and her scholars 
are beginning to produce respectable and elab- 
orate works in literature and science. 

But there are many obstacles yet in the way 
of national regeneration. 

Purblind diplomacy never blundered more 
palpably than in the negotiations which deter- 
mined the boundaries of the new kingdom. 
False notions of the importance of doing as 
little injury as possible to the power of Tur- 
key excluded much that was rightfully enti- 
tled to independence, and by nature a constit- 
uent part of the Greek state. Thessaly, the 
cradle of the race, the first Hellas, — and still 

* Of the Greeks, as a people, even before the Revolution, 
Mr. Finlay remarks : " It is probable that a larger proportion 
could read and write than among any other Christian race in 
Europe." — History of the Greek Revolution, II. 20. 



THE MODERN CAPITAL AND KINGDOM. 195 

inhabited by a more unmixed Greek popula- 
tion than most parts of Otho's kingdom, — the 
birthplace of Rhegas, the patriot bard, and 
the home of many of the foremost champions 
of the Revolution, — with its rich soil (whose 
annual bounty Greece so much needs), its 
intelligence and thirst for knowledge, and 
its fitness for freedom, — this Thessaly and 
Epeirus were both thrust back under Moham- 
medan despotism. What a commentary on 
the sagacity and the fairness of the diplomatic 
map-makers of Western Europe ! From the 
necessity of the case, this first misstep has en- 
tailed others ; and in the Crimean war France 
and England were compelled to crush by their 
arms the efforts of a gallant people to vindi- 
cate their freedom and nationality, and se- 
cure a higher civilization. Honest Lord Car- 
lisle, who was on board one of the English 
vessels sent on an expedition " to the Macedo- 
nian and Thracian coast, to show the flag, en- 
courage the Turks, and prevent any improper 
communications from Greece," betrays his con- 
sciousness that they were playing a strange 
part for Englishmen. " Our mission here, iu- 



196 ' HELLAS. 

deed," he says, " is to give countenance to the 
invaded Turks, and the reverse to the insur- 
gent Greeks. Such, probably, is loyally our 
duty ; still the thought recurs, where are we 
now doing this? — opposite the Pass of Ther- 
mopylae." * 

But Greece has found worse obstacles than 
unnatural boundaries. She has still to wait 
for wise and liberal rulers. 

It was a day of proud hope for Hellas when, 
escorted by the fleets of three great nations, 
her youthful monarch landed on her shores. f 
A graceful youth of seventeen, manly and pre- 
possessing, with a reputation for kindness of 
heart and quick intelligence, J — no wonder 

* " Diary in Turkish and Greek Waters," p. 263, American 
edition. 

t February 6, 1833. 

{N.P. Willis, who was presented to King Otho at Nauplia, 
a few months after his landing, thus describes his appearance : 
"He is rather tall, and his figure is extremely light and ele- 
gant. A very flat nose and high cheek-bones are the most 
marked features of his face ; his hair is straight, and of a light 
brown, and with no claim to beauty ; the expression of his 
countenance is manly, open, and prepossessing." The same 
writer, in speaking of the young king's visit to the Ameri- 
can frigate United States, says, "As he stepped on the deck, 



THE MODERN CAPITAL AND KINGDOM. 197 

that every eye followed him with admiration, 
and every heart with blessings, as he rode to his 
palace through joyous throngs of his new sub- 
jects, hailing his advent as their deliverance 
from an anarchy no more tolerable than the 
tyranny of the Turks which preceded it. Nor 
can we doubt that Otho then sincerely desired, 
as he continued to the end to desire, the hap- 
piness and prosperity of his people. But, edu- 
cated in a petty German court, with feudal 
notions as far remote as possible from applica- 
bility to the affairs of Greece, and, notwith- 
standing his honesty of purpose, by nature 

and was received by Commodore Patterson, I thought I had 
never seen a more elegant and well-proportioned man." Mr. 
Finlay says of the new sovereign, " Though not handsome, 
he was well-grown, and of an engaging appearance/' 

Commander Wise ("Harry Gringo"), who was in Greece 
at the same time as myself, paints him as he was then. " Otho 
is tall and slim, with a small head and very large neck ; dark 
hair, flat nose turned up at the apex; no front teeth, and 
somewhat hard of hearing ; in fact, 

' So very deaf, 
That he might have worn a percussion-cap 
And been knocked on the head without hearing it snap.' 

But still, with his German-grayish eyes, the face is, on the 

whole, pleasing." 



198 HELLAS. 

narrow-minded and obstinate, he has failed to 
satisfy the expectations which the establish- 
ment of Grecian independence had reasonably- 
excited in his nation and the world. Singu- 
larly blind to the truth that all national great- 
ness must rest on a groundwork of material 
well-being, he has done next to nothing in the 
way of opening roads, reclaiming lands, plant- 
ing forests, or fostering the interests of agri- 
culture and commerce. Trained in the nar- 
rowest maxims of bureaucracy, he has per- 
petuated the evil work, begun by Capodistrias, 
of crippling the municipal institutions of the 
country. Yielding with ill grace in 1843 to 
the demands of the people for the constitu- 
tional government which had been promised 
them, he has to a great extent neutralized its 
advantages by tampering with the elections, 
and filling both houses of the legislature with 
his creatures. Errours so grave cannot be 
counterbalanced by the good qualities with 
which they coexisted, or by the benefits which 
could not fail to result from the substitution 
of any kind of regular government for anar- 
chy. It is not to be wondered at that the 



THE MODERN CAPITAL AND KINGDOM. 199 

Greeks were dissatisfied with their " barba- 
rian " sovereign, and that his reign was check- 
ered with many a revolt. 

Sagacious kingcraft has always allied itself 
with the religious prejudices of the people. 
Yet to the Greeks, so proudly Orthodox, the 
Great Powers sent a Catholic King, who took 
to himself a Protestant Queen. It was in the 
bond, it is true, that their children should 
be brought up in the tenets of the national 
Church ; but the hopes which the people enter- 
tained for an heir to the crown born on Greek 
soil and educated in the Greek faith have been 
disappointed. We may set it down to the 
credit of Otho, that his was not the easy virtue 
of Henry IY. or of Bernadotte, and that he 
remained true to the faith of his ancestors ; 
but, as enlightened England wisely excludes 
from her throne all who shock her prejudices 
by professing either his religion or that of his 
recent subjects, so it might have been expected 
that Greece would be restive under a king of 
a different creed from her own, and it is not 
strange that the want of religious sympathy 
between him and his people was one of the 



200 HELLAS. 

causes which led to the deposition of the 
Bavarian dynasty. 

Perhaps the capital errour of the Greek gov- 
ernment has been the retention of the Turkish 
land-tax, which exacts yearly one tenth of the 
produce of the soil, and is so burdensome in 
its operation that it has effectually checked 
the development of the agricultural resources 
of the country, preventing the immigration of 
labourers and the building up of a sturdy and 
independent yeomanry. 

But the Greeks should not forget that, great 
as is the influence of the government upon a 
nation, much more must always depend upon 
the people themselves. If the energies which 
have been wasted in rebellion had been de- 
voted to the peaceful discussion of measures 
of reform, and the dissemination of sound 
principles, or to the promotion of a better 
training, both in the family and in the school, 
something would have been done to secure 
that elevation in the character of the whole 
people which is the sure bulwark of freedom, 
and which, by its moral influence, must soon- 
er or later compel despotism to give way. 



THE MODERN CAPITAL AND KINGDOM. 201 

And so also of those hopes — not, as I be- 
lieve, unfounded — which contemplate fondly 
the vision of a Hellas with enlarged bounda- 
ries, and with a power which shall not be in- 
significant in the councils of Europe. To the 
few who, from personal interest, may read 
these words on the banks of the Ilissus, and 
to all the statesmen and patriots of Greece, if 
my voice could reach them, I would say with 
all earnestness, Labour manfully for the edu- 
cation of your people, not only in the learning 
of the schools, but in those habits of industry 
and thrift which are best calculated to develop 
your material wealth, — that integrity and 
honour which shall gain them the confidence 
of other nations, — that sturdy morality, with- 
out which national stability is impossible, — 
that generous aspiration for well-regulated 
liberty which shall make them render a 
cheerful obedience to constituted authority, 
whilst they strive persistently, but by peace- 
ful measures, to effect the removal of all 
restrictions which obstruct their progress. 
Piedmont had gained the respect and confi- 
dence of the world by her quiet career of 



202 HELLAS. 

well-ordered liberty and wise national devel- 
opment, before she sprang forth to rescue 
Italy from tyranny, and add the fairest to 
the countries of the free. Greece, too, must 
educate herself up to the height of the full 
desert of freedom and of greatness, before 
she can hope to welcome " the rich dawn " 
of her " ampler day." She must find her 
Cavour before her Garibaldi. 

Let her show herself worthy, and Thessaly, 
Epeirus, and Macedonia, Crete and the Ionian 
Isles, shall be hers in fact, — and by moral 
gravitation, rather than through bloody con- 
vulsion, — as they will be hers by divine right, 
— that right which consists in the evident and 
providential fitness of things, attested by com- 
mon interests, hopes, and aspirations, and by 
the invincible consciousness of a common na- 
tionality. 



THE DISCOVERIES AT ATHENS AND 
MYCENAE IN 1862. 

In the spring of 1862, some eminent Ger- 
man scholars had the happiness to make dis- 
coveries in Athens which will mark an epoch 
in the history of archaeology. The additions 
thus made to our knowledge are so important, 
that I am unwilling to leave the foregoing chap- 
ters without appending some notice of them. 

And first, the Dionysiac Theatre has been 
in great part laid open to view, by the removal 
of the soil and rubbish which covered it to 
the depth of twenty feet. The excavations 
were conducted by Mr. Strack, royal architect 
of Prussia. They disclosed the seats occupied 
by the general body of spectators, and more- 
over a number of marble thrones or chairs of 
honour, next to the orchestra, and constituting 
the three front rows. The chairs still bear 
the inscriptions designating the officials for 
whom they were designed, so that, as Curtius 



204 HELLAS. 

says, " if the dignitaries of the city were to 
come back to-day, there would be no quarrels 
about precedency of seats to fear." * It is a 
striking fact, that, of the chairs of honour thus 
far excavated, almost all — or forty-one out of 
forty-five — were designed for priests or men 
of sacerdotal rank. " This may be accidental, 
since certainly many more of these chairs have 
been destroyed than preserved, and conspicu- 
ous seats for the magistrates could not have 
been wanting ; yet, on the other hand, the 
extraordinary insignificance of many of the 
deities whose priests are named in the inscrip- 
tions (such as the Muses, Eucleia, Eunomia, 
and certain obscure heroes) makes it probable 
that an extensive claim on the part of sacer- 
dotal personages to seats in the theatre was 
early made, and was subsequently turned to 
account by means of half-illusory priestly 
titles." f At any rate, especial dignity and 

* " Festrede " before the University at Gottingen, June 4, 
1862, p. 10. 

t E. Gerhard, in the "Anzeiger zur Archaologischer Zei- 
tung," May and June, 1862, p. 328; from an article on the 
discoveries in the Dionysiac Theatre, to which I am indebted 
for my best information on the whole subject. 



DISCOVERIES AT ATHENS AND MYCEN.E. 205 

prominence was given to the priests at the 
theatrical representations, — a consequence 
perhaps of the religious character which ac- 
tually belonged to the dithyrambic and choral 
odes from which Greek tragedy took its origin, 
and which continued to be attributed to the 
drama itself. 

The midmost and most highly decorated of 
the chairs was appropriated to the priest of 
Dionysos. It is adorned with reliefs of satyrs 
and winged genii. On one of the bench-rows, 
as it appears from an inscription, seats were 
reserved for the guild of stone-masons. Be- 
sides the chairs and rows of seats, two pedes- 
tals were discovered, a colossal female statue 
without head, some remains of the scena, and 
the ascent from the orchestra to the middle of 
the proscenium (the stage, in modern phrase), 
on the upper step of which is carved the fol- 
lowing inscription of the Roman period : — 

" For thee, wild-revelling god, this beautiful stage was erected 
By Phsedrus, Zoilus' son, bountiful Attica's archon." * 

The investigation of the ruins on the Acro- 

* 2ot robe KaXou erei>£e, (frikopyie, ^r^ia Serjrpov (sic) 
$cudpos ZcoiXov fiiobaTopos 'ArBidos apxos> 



206 HELLAS. 

polis, with their inexhaustible problems, was 
intrusted to the skilful hands of Professor 
Botticher. He has established the fact, that 
in the Parthenon there were two doors be- 
tween the cella, or the Hecatompedon, and the 
Opisthodomus, having actually detected the 
sockets in the floor wherein the pivots were 
inserted upon which the doors turned, the 
scratches made by the rubbing- of the doors 
against the pavement as they were opened and 
shut, and even by the bolt which -fastened the 
doors against the sill, the hole into which this 
bolt was inserted, and the marks of feet which 
passed over the threshold. Each of the doors 
was five feet wide in the clear. They were 
folding-doors, and were fastened on the side of 
the Opisthodomus. 

Botticher has also found sufficient confirma- 
tion of his hypothesis of the existence of a 
platform or raised seat for the magistrates 
and judges, before the statue, whence the 
prizes were bestowed in the Panathenaic fes- 
tival, " whilst a select festal assembly filled 
the space of the cella beneath, and from the 
upper galleries, to which the steps on both 



DISCOVERIES AT ATHENS AND MYCENAE. 207 

sides of the Parthenos mounted, resounded 
hymns of victory and joy." * The statue itself 
is proved to have been placed further back 
than previous investigators have supposed. 

The door of entrance to the Opisthodomus 
from without, Botticher finds to have been a 
double one, the halves of the outer door open- 
ing against the sides of the aperture in the 
temple-wall, which was six and a half feet thick, 
and the inner door, of brazen lattice-work, 
opening directly into the Opisthodomus. Above 
the door was a very large latticed window. 

In the temple of Athena Polias, Botticher 
has discovered six windows in the crypt, and 
arrived at a theory of the structure of this 
whole building, differing from any hitherto en- 
tertained. For fuller information in regard 
to the result of his researches,! I await im- 
patiently the appearance of a book which he 
promises upon the Acropolis, in which we may 
expect a fuller and clearer exposition than 

* Curtius, Gr. Gesch., II. 274, 275. 

t My information in regard to Prof. Botticher's discoveries 
is derived chiefly from extracts from his letters from Athens in 
the Arch. Zeitung for May and June, 1862, pp. 321 -324. 



208 HELLAS. 

has ever yet appeared, not only of the outward 
form, but of the internal organism and struc- 
ture, — the whole anatomy of the different 
parts and their respective functions, — in those 
wondrous architectural creations on the rocky 
citadel of Athens, which, in the immortal 
beauty and perfection of their design and mean- 
ing, in spite of all the mutilations to which they 
may be subjected in their outward form and 
embodiment, will remain a /crfjfia e? ael, a 
possession for all time. 

Not less interesting than the brilliant dis- 
coveries of Strack and Botticher were those 
made by Professor Curtius, who undertook a 
thorough investigation of the most important 
points in the topography of Athens.* It does 
not fall within the scope of this little volume 
to follow this distinguished scholar as he traces 
the whole history and development of the city 
on the ground itself, points out the seats of 
the earliest inhabitants, determines the boun- 
daries of the Agora and the course of the city 
walls, and re-creates the Athens of the past 

* See extracts from letters from Curtius, etc., in the num- 
ber of the Arch. Zeitung already cited, pp. 324 -327. 



DISCOVERIES AT ATHENS AND MYCENAE. 209 

with a skill equal to that of the geologist and 
the palaeontologist in restoring bygone epochs 
in the history of our globe. But I am bound 
to lay before my readers the decisive results 
of his excavations at the so-called Pnyx, in 
which he has disclosed the whole of the old 
polygonal wall, hitherto in great part hidden, 
and proved that the original surface between 
this wall and the " bema " was of rock, care- 
fully levelled and sinking as it receded from 
the bema, and therefore not intended to be 
covered with earth. That the present surface 
is not the old one is further proved by the dis- 
covery of the foundations of middle-age build- 
ings upon the original ground, and of three 
steps hewn in the rock beneath the brick 
masonry of these foundations, as well as by 
the finding of shards of pottery, terra-cottas, 
bits of inscriptions, and two fragments of votive 
offerings, — the latter being naked members 
of the human body dedicated to Zeus Hupsi- 
stos. Moreover, trenches were found, smoothly 
cut in the rock, and dividing it in a manner 
inconsistent with the hypothesis that this was 
the place wherein the political assemblages of 
14 



210 HELLAS. 

the people were held. And so, as Curtius 
says, instead of hopelessly pursuing the quar- 
rel on the modern surface, the original ground 
has been for the first time interrogated, and a 
final answer in the negative returned to those 
who have asserted the claims of this locality 
as the veritable Pnyx. Yielding perhaps too 
easily to the conservative arguments of Eng- 
lish and American scholars, I have myself in- 
dulged the gratissimus error that I had plant- 
ed my feet upon the rocky tribune whence 
Pericles and Demosthenes first uttered those 
words which will echo through all generations ; 
but the science which wins so much for us 
from the scanty relics of the past, may well be 
forgiven if it sometimes dispels our pleasing 
illusions. 

On the slopes of the Musaeum, also, Curtius 
undertook excavations, whence important in- 
formation may be derived ; and at the Muny- 
chia topographical investigations were set on 
foot which promise the richest results. Schol- 
ars will read with eagerness the full account 
of his researches which Curtius has promised 
in his " Attic Studies," the first number of 



DISCOVERIES AT ATHENS AND MYCENJ3. 211 

which was to appear at Christmas, 1862, in 
the Proceedings of the Gottingen Academy of 
Sciences. 

The old-time monuments of Mycenae were 
not neglected amidst the archaeological attrac- 
tions of Athens. Mr. Strack, accompanied by 
Professor Vischer of Basle and Mr. Schirrma- 
cher, an architect, devoted several days to 
their examination. Of the relief over the 
Gate of the Lions Strack declares that all the 
drawings that have been published are false ; 
that the pillar (as he proved by actual meas- 
urement) is not smaller at the bottom than 
at the top, but of uniform diameter through- 
out ; that the lions stand on two separate 
pedestals, and not on one with a hole in the 
middle ; and that the architrave above the 
capital does not exhibit balls in its middle 
portion, " but cylindrical figures like tree- 
trunks." The concurrence of all previous be- 
holders in representing the pillar as growing 
smaller towards the bottom, proves that there 
is an optical illusion in the case, as indeed 
might be expected in a column of uniform 
diameter, our eyes being accustomed to col- 



212 HELLAS. 

umns larger at the bottom than at the top. 
The heads of the lions, as Strack states, were 
inserted by means of stone pegs ; inasmuch as 
they were turned outwards, and the stone tab- 
let on which the bodies were carved was not 
thick enough for the heads to be wrought in 
the same piece of stone. 

On the northwest side of the walls of the 
citadel, the explorers laid open a gallery with a 
pointed-arched roof, like those of Tiryns, " so 
that now all the forms of Pelasgic construc- 
tion are found in Mycenae." They also ex- 
plored the remains of the smaller vaulted sub- 
terranean building, near the "Treasury of 
Atreus " and resembling it in construction, 
where they uncovered fourteen circular courses 
of stone, and found a brazen plate of the lining 
of the inner surface still well preserved. 

Under the auspices of the Royal Museum 
at Berlin, plaster casts have been taken of a 
number of hitherto uncopied sculptures, among 
which are the lions from the gate of Mycenae, 
and the monument of Aristion. 

The researches so happily begun will doubt- 
less be continued. The Archaeological Society 



DISCOVERIES AT ATHENS AND MYCENAE. 213 

of Athens has taken in hand the completion 
of the excavation of the Dionysiac Theatre, 
and German scholars will not abandon the seat 
of their triumphs till every problem of its 
archseology has been either answered or proved 
unanswerable. Meantime, in all civilized na- 
tions the results of these investigations will 
be watched for with interest; for wherever 
the achievements of the noblest powers of man 
are held in honour, everything will be wel- 
comed that throws new light on the history 
and the monuments of Hellas. 




NOTES 



P. 17. How painful would it have been, at this enter- 
tainment on board the Cumberland, to have foreseen the 
civil strife in which that noble vessel was to gain its sad 
immortality ! 

P. 130. Curtius discovers in the frieze of the Parthe- 
non a representation not so much of the actual procession 
in the Panathenaic festival, as of the preparations for the 
same. Had it been the task proposed to give a true copy 
of the procession itself, he says, " all freedom would have 
been taken away from the inventive artist ; a solemn 
monotony would have been unavoidable, and every rep- 
resentation of this kind would have remained as a feeble 
counterfeit far behind the living reality. Much more 
significant was it to represent the preparations for the 
great festal procession ; since therein the earnestness was 
manifested with which the Athenians undertook their na- 
tional festivals. Thus, in a natural manner and without 
constraint, the groups of riders and the four-horse teams, 
the sacrificial trains and the musicians, the aliens per- 
forming service and the magistrates directing and mar- 
shalling the procession, could be represented." Gr. Gesch., 
K 267. 

P. 134. The brilliant golden shields, with which the 
architrave was adorned below the metopes on the eastern 



216 NOTES. 

and western fronts of the Parthenon, added to the varied 
effects of colour. 

P. 140. Botticher's recent investigations may give us 
greater certainty in regard to the much-disputed plan of 
the Erechtheum, and the purposes to which its different 
parts were appropriated. That a part of the temple was 
devoted to the worship of Poseidon, under the name of 
Poseidon-Erechtheus, seems to be established. 



INDEX. 



Academy of Plato, 168, 169. 

Achilles, Pompeian picture of, 
35. 

Acropolis of Athens, its fortu- 
nate position, 17 — its wall, 
112 — described, 115 sqq. — 
rich fragments of buildings 
and statues upon it, 116, 122, 
147 — multitude of shrines, 
temples, and statues which 
covered it, 123, 147 — the first 
impression its ruins give, 121, 
136. 

.<Egina, 171 - 178 — ruins of tem- 
ple at, 173, 175 — pedimental 
sculptures of the temple, 175 - 
177 — their lifelikeness and 
anatomical truth, 176, 177. 

Alaric, a legend of, 124. 

Amalia, Queen, her garden in 
Athens, 186, 187. 

Aphrodite, her mythical birth 
explained, 8. 

Arachova, 85, 86. 

Architecture, admiration of one 
of its schools consistent with 
appreciation of the others, 
139. 

Areopagus, 148-151 — St. Paul 
on the, 148-153. 

Argos, plain of, 26 — the ancient 
city, 33, 34. 

Aristion, monument of, 159, 160, 
212. 

Art, Greek, instinctive, 132 — 
union of liberty and law in it, 
41, 160 — its cheerful spirit, 
137, 138, 143, 159 — its im- 
mortality, 208. 



Athena, Archegetis, Portico of, 
161 — Parthenos, chrysele- 
phantine statue of, 126, 127 

— Polias, her temple, 145 — 
Promachos, statue of, 123. 

Athens, its aspect, 14-17 — view 
of, from iEgaleus, 94, 95 — its 
ruins described, 110 - 170, 203 
-210 — their fortunate posi- 
tion, 16, 17 — my last night in, 
169, 170. 

Athens, Modern, 14, 15, 183- 
187 — intermixture of barbar- 
ity and civilization in, 183 — 
idle habits of the people, 184 

— their favorite promenade, 
185, 186 — literary activity of, 
194. 

Blackie, Prof., a Song of Par- 
nassus by, 76 - 83. 

Botticher, Prof., points out dis- 
tinction between Parthenon 
and temple of Athena Polias, 
145 — his recent discoveries 
at Athens, 206 - 208. 

Bvron's " Maid of Athens," 17, 
'18. 

Byzantine-Greek Empire, new, 
'dreams of a, 18, 19. 

Callirrhoe, 166. 

Caper, beauty of its blossom, 30, 

31. 
Carlisle, Earl of, quoted, 195, 196. 
Castalian spring, 74, 75. 
Cathedral, St. John's, at Valetta, 

6, 7 — the new, at Athens, 

184. 



218 



INDEX. 



Cephissia, 99, 100 — a source of 
Cephissus at, 99. 

Chasronea, 63-65 — lion monu- 
ment at, 63, 64. 

Choregic monument of Lysi- 
crates, 113, 114. 

Clyde, James, 20. 

Colonos, 169. 

Colours, of earth, sea, and sky, 
in Greek landscapes, 11, 25, 
30, 43, 47, 71, 95, 170. 

Colours, use of, in decorating 
Greek temples and sculptures, 
133-135,160,173. 

Columns, drums of, how joined 
together, 163. 

Copais, Lake, 57 - 59. 

Corinth, 46. 

Corinthian order, its earliest ex- 
ample, 113 — prophecy of, 142. 

Corycian Cave, 73. 

Costume, Modern Greek, 21, 23. 

Cucumber, wild, 33. 

Cumberland, war-frigate (after- 
wards sloop-of-war), 13, 14, 17, 
18, 215. 

Curtius, Prof. Ernst, his " Pelo- 
ponnesos " quoted, 42 — his 
History of Greece cited, 84, 
146, 206, 215 — his recent dis- 
coveries at Athens, 208-211. 

Cyclades, the, 10. 

Cythera, 8. 

Danaides, their mythical punish- 
ment explained, 42. 

Daphne, pass and monastery of, 
93, 94. 

Daulia, 66. 

Delphi, 73-76, 84, 85. 

Dervenosalesi, 52. 

Dirce, 55. 

Dromedaries in Greece, 94. 

Education, liberal provision for, 
in Modern Greece, 187-189 

— of young ladies, 188, 189. 
Eleusis, 91, 92. 
Eleutherse, 90. 
Erechtheum, 140-145, 207, 216 

— variety of sacred objects 
comprehended in, 140, 141 — 
beauty of Ionic order in, 142 



— portico of the Athenian 
maidens, 143, 144. 

Erechthonius, statue of, 161. 
Eremokastri, 55, 56. 

Finlay, George, 12, 13, 96 — his 
History of the Greek Revolu- 
tion quoted, 194. 

Flutes made of the reeds of Co- 
pais, 59, 60. 

Frogs, croaking of the Greek, 
27, 28. 

Gate of the Lions, 40, 41, 211 , 212. 

Gerhard, Prof., quoted, 204. . 

Gravestones, admirable reliefs 
upon ancient Greek, 158, 159. 

Greece, Modern, aspect and 
prospects of, 187-202 — wise 
provision for education in, 187 
- 189 — blunders of diplomacy 
in determining its boundaries, 
etc., 194, 195, 199 — capital 
errour of the government of, 
200 — true method of national 
regeneration, 200 - 202 - possi- 
ble future of, 201, 202. 

Greek Church, 189-191— its 
imposing antiquity, 189, 190 

— its dangers and hopes, 190, 
191 — its encouragement of 
the circulation of the Scrip- 
tures, 191 — extract from its 
Catechism, 192 - 193. 

Greek churches, paintings in, 93, 
94, 179. 

Greek language, Modern, 192- 
194 — translations into from 
English, 89. 

Greek people, Modern, their in- 
telligence, 23, 24 — beauty, 23 

— manly bearing, 24, 63 — 
customs, 165, 184, 186 — their 
mode of singing, 165, 178. 

Hadrian, gate of, 161 — stoa of, 
161. 

Helicon, view of, 56. 

Hieratic style, 177. 

Homeridse, a modern represent- 
ative of the, 28, 29. 

Horologe of Andronicus Cyr- 
rhestes, 111. 



INDEX. 



219 



Horses of the frieze of the Par- 
thenon, 130. 
Hydra, 24. 

Ilissus, 165 — ruined bridge over, 
166. 

Khans, Greek, described, 49, 90. 
Klephts, 87. 

Land-tax, Turkish, retained in 

Modern Greece, 200. 
Lebadea, 61 - 63. 
Lernsean hydra, meaning of the 

myth, 35. 
Leuctra, 88. 

Malta, 5-7. 

Marathon, 96 - 109 — " Herodo- 
tus and Byron best guides to," 
96 — beauty of the scenery, 
107 — monument of Athenians 
who fell at, 104 — ignorance 
of Albanian inhabitants of its 
history, 106 — view of, from 
Pentelicus, 181, 182. 

Matapan, Cape, 8. 

Messina, 5. 

Mountains, heights of, in Attica, 
181. 

Musaeum, 167, 210. 

Museum of Greek Art in the 
Theseum, 157-160. 

Mycenae, 35-41, 211, 212. 

Myths explained, 8, 35, 42. 

Nauplia, gulf and harbour, 25 - 
26 — town and neighbourhood, 
26-30. 

Navigation laws, modern Greek, 
172. 

Nemea, 44, 45. 

Nike Apteros, temple of, 117. 

Observatory at Athens, 156. 

Odeum of Herodes Atticus, 115. 

(Enoe, 90. 

Oleanders, 42, 43, 103, 187. 

Olympieum, 162-165. 

Orchomenus, 58-61. 

Otho I., king, a guide's opinion 
of, 172 — his personal appear- 
ance, 196, 197 — hopes enter- 



tained at his arrival, 196, 197 
— his character and errours, 
197-198, 200 — his religion, 
199. 

Palamidi, 29-30. 

Parnassus, ascent of, 67-83 — 
shepherds of, 68, 69, 72 — a 
night on, 69 — view from its 
summit, 70, 71 — a song of, 
76-83 — purity of Greek race 
in region of, 86. 

Parthenon, described, 125-138, 
206-207 — its sculptures, 128 
- 131, 147, 215 — architectural 
refinements in its construc- 
tion, 131-133 — avoidance of 
straight lines in it, 131 - 133 — 
its coloured adornments, 133 - 
135 — its recent history, 135 - 

137 — shields on its architrave, 
146, 216 — in what its great 
charm consists, 137-138 — 
its harmony and serenity, 137 - 

138 — designed for festal uses, 
not for sacrifice and worship, 
145, 146 — concentration in it 
of symbols of emulation, 146. 

Partisanship, true taste untram- 
melled by, 139. 

Paul, St., his discourse on Mars' 
Hill, 148-153 — his personal 
appearance, 150 — his quota- 
tions from the Greek poets, 
152, 153. 

Peiraeus, 13, 47. 

Pentelicus, 178-182 — grove and 
monastery at its foot, 179 — 
ascent of, 180, 181 — its geo- 
logical character, 180 — view 
from it, 181, 182. 

Philopappus, monument of, 167. 

Phyle, 51, 52. 

Platsea, 88, 89. 

Pnyx, the old theory of its site 
and form, 153 - 156 — Curti- 
us's recent excavations, 209, 
210. 

Pomegranate, its beauty, 66. 

Priests, prominence given to, at 
the theatre, 204, 205. 

Propylsea, 118-122 — evidence 
of its unfinished state, 122. 



220 



INDEX. 



Pythian oracle, secret of its in- 
fluence, 84. 

Eoad from Thebes to Athens, 89. 

Rome and Augustus, temple of, 
147. 

Rosaries, Greek habit of twirl- 
ing, 186. 

Ruins of Athens, orange, tawny, 
and russet colour of, 157, 164. 

St. George the Younger (6 veos) 
61. 

Scylla and Charybdis, 4, 5. 

Socrates, the so-called prison of, 
167, 168. 

Stadium Panathenaicum, 166, 
167. 

Steamboats, groups on their 
decks in Greek waters, 21-23. 

Steamships on the Mediterra- 
nean, usual company in, 2-4. 

Strack, Mr., his recent discover- 
ies at Athens, 203 - 205 — at 
Mycenae, 211-212. 

Stromboli, 4. 

Stylites, St. Simeon, a modern 
rival of, 164. 

Sunium, promontory of, 11 — 
ruins of temple of Athena on, 
11. 

Svra, 8,9 — Mr. Hildner's school 
at, 9. 

Temples, ancient Greek, plan of, 

124, 125. 
Theatre, Dionvsiac, 114, 203- 

205. 



Thebes, 53, 54, 

Themistocles, monument of, 13, 
47. 

Theseum, 156, 157. 

Thespiae, 55. 

Thessaly unjustly excluded 
from the modern kingdom of 
Greece, 194, 195. 

Thucvdides, a passage in, illus- 
trated, 86. 

Tiryns. 31-33. 

Travelling in Greece, mode of, 
48-50. 

Treasury, of Atreus, 35-39 — 
of Minyas, 58, 59 — similar 
building recently excavated 
at Mycenae, 212. 

Tripods, street of the, 113. 

Trophonius, sanctuary of, 62. 

Turkey, her coming fall, 19. 

Turks, disfigured ancient stat- 
ues, 111. 

Turner, J. M. TV., his painting 
of the temple at JEgina, 175. 

University at Athens, 187, 188. 

Valetta, 5-7. 

Voyage, from Naples to Malta. 

2-5 — from Malta to Athens, 

7-14. 

Wine, Greek, injured bv resin, 
85, 86. 

Zeus Hupsistos, 155, 209. 



THE END. 



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